


His Innocence

by The_Cool_Aunt



Series: Endpoint [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Age Play, Angst, Drug Use, Infantilism, Johnlock - Freeform, M/M, Non-Sexual Age Play, Porn, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-26
Updated: 2015-04-26
Packaged: 2018-03-25 22:52:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 42
Words: 28,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3827938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Cool_Aunt/pseuds/The_Cool_Aunt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You’re finding this fascinating, aren’t you?” he said finally, quietly. “It is fascinating, John. Age play is rare enough; infantilism is a smaller subculture of that, and nonsexual infantilism is… quite rare indeed.” John felt a bit sick, but he swallowed and replied slowly, his voice tight. “No, I mean you, Sherlock. Not you the detective. You the person.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It had started innocently enough—well, as innocent as anything that started as evidence stolen from a crime scene was. Although, if one was splitting hairs, the liberated items actually had no bearing on the case at all, had never been tagged as evidence, and with both former inhabitants of the flat dead (murdered, hence the crime scene), no one was going to miss them.  
  
John hadn’t been with Sherlock when he had discovered the box; the detective had been working with Lestrade, searching the flat in Mayfair for anything that would help them identify the murderous couple who had hit and killed a man with a transit van and then, months later, sliced open his widow’s arm and left her to bleed out. They had been digging through boxes of personal effects in the bedroom when Sherlock had been taken aback upon opening one particular box.  
  
The deceased tenants of the flat had been in their thirties and had no children, and yet he had found a box full of—  
  


> He pulled a box toward him, his head cocking in curiosity. Unlike all the others, this one had no label on it. He frowned and opened in. His mouth fell open.
> 
> “Sherlock? What is it?”
> 
> “This is… different,” he admitted, glancing up at the silver-haired man. He reached into the box and pulled out a stuffed bunny. Lestrade shrugged. His first wife had stuffed animals. He watched as the long white fingers delved into the box again. A baby blanket. All right. A toddler’s bowl and plate decorated with cartoon characters. Hmm. Two dummies. Oh. A baby bottle. Erm... And finally, a packet of adult nappies. Shit.
> 
> “What’s that all about?” he muttered, whistling and sliding down onto the floor next to Sherlock.
> 
> “I’m not positive (Lestrade gave him a look), but I think the Atkinsons were involved in… I don’t know the phrase, exactly. Age play, I believe.”
> 
> “What the fuck is that?”
> 
> “What am I, an encyclopaedia? Look it up! It’s got nothing to do with the case,” Sherlock snarled. And then the consulting detective suddenly shoved everything back into the box and closed it vehemently. He shoved the box back toward the cupboard. 

Lestrade had calmed him down and they had proceeded with their investigation, but the older man was aware that his companion’s eyes kept flicking toward the box. That case had had Sherlock extremely wound up and was absolutely chock full of the landmines that were his self-harm triggers. Greg and John had both watched him carefully and communicated frequently to make sure that he was all right—and when he wasn’t—and the D.I. made sure he told the doctor about the incident. He wasn’t sure exactly what it meant, but the items in the box had clearly made an impression on the brooding man.

That had been a few months ago, and despite some of the rockier moments they had had, and one quite frankly terrifying evening, a very positive outcome was eventually achieved from it all, because after that particular evening John had thrown caution to the wind and explained exactly how he felt about his mad flatmate, and Sherlock had finally admitted that not all “sentiment” was distasteful, and they had both discovered that they were rather fond of one another in a way that meant that they no longer needed that second bedroom.


	2. Chapter 2

“Sherlock, what the _hell_ happened?” John jumped out of his chair in alarm as the door to the flat swung open to reveal a frost-covered detective.  
  
“Slight mis—miscalculation.” His voice was husky; his jaw tight.  
  
“Miscalculation?  
  
“Windy.”  
  
“You were out there soaking wet? My God, it’s freezing out! I mean, literally freezing. Get in here.” The doctor dove forward as Sherlock stumbled over the threshold. “Jesus! Are you all right?” he spat out, steadying the taller man.  
  
“Bit… numb,” he said with difficulty. Minute particles of ice showered both of them as a violent shudder ran through him.  
  
“All right. Let’s get you out of this wet clothing. Shit, Sherlock. It’s almost minus twelve out there.” John pulled off the sodden gloves, coat, and scarf. Sherlock tried to take off his own suit jacket, but he apparently had no control over his hands, so John did it for him even as Sherlock tried to voice his objections. “Sit down,” he directed, pushing his companion in the direction of his chair. “I want to get your shoes off and take a good look at you.”  
  
The dark-haired man gave up trying to speak as John carefully removed the ridiculously thin dress shoes and socks. “Your feet are like ice, but I don’t see any signs of frostbite. Maybe frost nip.” Sherlock didn’t respond, his face pale behind the dripping curls.  
  
John grabbed an afghan and laid it over him. “Be right back,” he promised. He dashed down the hall to the bathroom, where he grabbed a few towels, and then to the bedroom for dry clothing. On the way back through the kitchen he retrieved his medical bag. When he returned to the sitting room, Sherlock’s eyes were shut. “Hey,” he said quietly. “Come on. Let’s get the rest of this off and you dry and warm, all right?”  
  
Sherlock managed to nod and allowed John to remove the soaked dress shirt. “You’re going to have to stand up so I can get your trousers off,” the doctor said softly. “I’ll help.” Fortunately, Sherlock was light and John was strong, and he managed to strip the trousers and pants, blot the damp skin gently with a towel, and slide warm track pants up. “Okay, back down.”  
  
T-shirt, a hoodie, his thickest dressing gown, and socks and John tucked the afghan back over his mate. He dried the dark hair with another towel. “All right. I need to take your temperature. Two seconds, all right?” He was grateful that he had gotten them the digital thermometer. Sherlock jerked slightly as it touched his ear. “Okay. Not too low. You’ll be all right if I just get you warmed up.” He pulled the hood up. “I’m going to make you some nice hot, sweet tea and borrow a hot water bottle from Mrs Hudson. All right?” He added a second blanket, tucking this one around the long legs and under his feet before dashing downstairs to retrieve a hot water bottle and some herbal tea from their landlady.  
  
A short time later, Sherlock was improved enough that, while finishing his tea, he explained exactly what miscalculation had led to his condition.  
  
“You are an idiot, you know,” John responded, shaking his head.  
  
“Mmm. Possibly.”  
  
And then they both laughed.  
  
“Wanker,” John giggled. “Don’t do that again, all right?” Sherlock made a move to get up. “Where do you think you’re going?” he demanded.  
  
“I need the loo.”  
  
“Hurry up. I want you back under those covers.”  
  
Sherlock made a show of rolling his eyes, but he seemed to have trouble walking, and by the time he was back he was shivering again. John didn’t say a word; he just gathered up the blankets and hot water bottle so Sherlock could sit back down, and then he gently bundled him up again. Sherlock cradled the hot water bottle to his chest. “How are your feet?” the doctor asked quietly.  
  
“They hurt a bit,” his mate admitted.  
  
“All right.” John slid down to the floor and took both of Sherlock’s feet, still wrapped in the blanket, into his lap.  
  
“What are you doing?” Sherlock demanded, alarmed.  
  
“Encouraging the circulation.” Carefully, through the blanket, John began to massage the injured toes. Sherlock winced slightly, but after a few minutes he relaxed, tipping his head onto the back of the chair and closing his eyes. “Is that helping?”  
  
“Mmm. It hurt at first, but now it feels rather nice.”  
  
“So I think you’ll be all right, but I’m…”  
  
“… going to be checking on me for the next few days. Yes, I know.” Sherlock sighed and opened his eyes, lifting his head to peer down at the doctor. “John?” he said softly.  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“Don’t you ever get tired of checking on me?”  
  
“What do you mean?” John paused in his rubbing and looked up into Sherlock’s eyes.  
  
“I mean, you seem to do that fairly often.”  
  
“Do I?” John looked back down and resumed rubbing.  
  
“Last week you were keeping an eye on that odd bruise I picked up, and the week before that was the infected gash on my shin, and before that was… was that when I had food poisoning…?”  
  
“ _Gave yourself_ food poisoning.”  
  
“It was for a case.”  
  
“Still, you are a great idiot and yes, I do a lot of checking on you, but it’s all right.”  
  
“Why?”  
  
“Why do I check on you a lot or why is it all right?”  
  
“Why is it all right?”  
  
John sat back and stared up. Sherlock looked genuinely puzzled. “Why is it all right? God, Sherlock. It’s all right because I’m a doctor and you’re a genius with the judgement of a four-year-old and you do tend to need a lot of checking up on.”  
  
Sherlock looked uncomfortable now.  
  
“Are you worried about it?”  
  
“Perhaps.”  
  
“Sherlock, it’s fine. It’s honestly fine. It makes me feel useful.”  
  
“You _are_ useful.”  
  
“With doing the housekeeping, maybe.”  
  
“You do so much more!” Sherlock protested.  
  
“Such as…?”  
  
Sherlock thought for a few seconds, and then he took a deep breath and started, his low voice rumbling through the flat.  
  
“You, John Watson, are the best thing that has ever happened to me. Yes, you keep the flat clean and do the shopping. You also answer my calls, write up my cases, and remind me to pay the bills. You treat me when I’ve burned myself during an experiment. You warn me when I’m being rude. You intervene on my behalf and apologize for me. You punch people who are rude to me. You allow my brother to kidnap you on a regular basis. You run after me and climb into skips for me and you shot a man for me. You… you decorate the flat for Christmas.”  
  
He paused, and when he continued, his voice was a bit rough.  
  
“John, you make sure that I eat and sleep. You hold my head when I’m going through withdrawal. You ground me when I feel like I’m about to fly to pieces.  
  
“Sometimes, you remind me to breathe.”  
  
They sat for a full minute.  
  
“Oh,” John finally said.  
  
“I do pay attention, you know.”  
  
“Sometimes, no, I don’t know that, but I do now. Thank you.”  
  
Sherlock nodded.  
  
“Now, what’s say we continue warming you up?”  
  
“What did you have in mind?”  
  
“Oh, I have a few ideas, but I think they might work better in the bedroom.”  
  
And John was brilliant, and they did.


	3. Chapter 3

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” John demanded.  
  
“About what?” Sally Donovan replied coolly.  
  
“What you just told them about Sherlock.” John indicated “them” to mean the handful of Yard staff gathered in the break room, who were now making a point of wandering away to mind their own business.  
  
“I was telling them the truth. He’s an amateur who’s apparently met his match with this case, and because he wouldn’t admit it, there are two more people dead.”  
  
“That’s not what happened and you know it! Those bodies were dumped long before Lestrade even phoned him.”  
  
“That’s what he’s claiming, anyway.” She glared at him.  
  
“I’m _fairly_ sure that the pathologist’s report will corroborate—what with there being signs of _decomposition_ and all,” he responded snidely. “He’s the best hope you’ve got on this case—no one can profile a serial killer like him.”  
  
“That’s because he probably is one himself. It’s not like he cares about the victims.”  
  
“No. You’re wrong about that.” John’s mouth was pressed into a firm, straight line.  
  
“Come off it! He doesn’t even blink an eye. I’ve seen him stare at a strangled child the way he’d look at some specimen under his microscope. He doesn’t feel things the way normal people do. Why can’t you see that?”  
  
John took a step so that he was almost chest-to-chest with the woman, his voice low and tight. “Do you know what I see? I see what no one else does. I see him after something like that—and he is wrecked. He just doesn’t ever show that side of himself.” John paused and ran his hand through his hair. “Look. When you, or Anderson, or even Lestrade fail, you don’t have to face it personally. It’s ‘the Yard’s’ failure—a division; a team. Most of you are nameless, faceless—the public has no idea who you are.”  
  
“So?”  
  
“So after _you_ fail to prevent the strangulation of a child, you can still walk into a shop or the cinema or the local pub, and chances are that not a single person you encounter has the slightest idea. You get to leave it at the office. But Sherlock? Because he is who he is, when he fails, it makes the news. He can’t go anywhere—not even home to his own flat—without his failure following him. People accost him in the street; did you know that?”  
  
“Not my problem.”  
  
“Perhaps not, but maybe that explains why he… why he puts on a mask. Pretends that he’s not affected by the things we see; the results of not figuring out the puzzle fast enough. Not being clever enough. He feels those failures much, much deeper than you can possibly understand, and he’s much harder on himself than any of you bastards ever could be.”  
  
“So I’m supposed to believe that after someone’s throat gets slit because he couldn’t play some game well enough, he goes home and cries about it, and that makes him—not a psychopath?”  
  
_No, he doesn’t go home and cry about it, and that was part of the problem,_ John fumed.  
  
“You’re supposed to _shut up._ ” John spun on his heel and marched out, his hands clenched in fists at his sides.  
  
*  
  
John was so furious that as he left the building, he didn’t notice that people were sort of scurrying out of his path. He wasn’t a large man, but he was fierce.  
  
He didn’t know who he was more furious at: Sally or himself.  
  
Because no, the detective _didn’t_ go home and cry about it, and for the longest time John hadn’t understood what was really going on. He had believed the act—fell for it hook, line, and sinker, really. Even called Sherlock on it more than once. He cringed now, recalling how many times he had ranted at Sherlock for not caring about the human lives involved in his cases.  
  
It had taken a long time and a great many frustrating conversations and finally Sherlock bottoming out for John to see it. The great git _did_ care. Of course he did. Granted, he was no angel, but he was certainly on their side. If he didn’t care, there was no doubt in John’s mind that Sherlock would indeed have been the one to become the consulting criminal. Most of it was the lure of the puzzles, of course, but he did see the faces of the victims. He heard their cries. He knew what terrors some of them had gone through. He just chose not to show it. Made a huge effort not to show it. To anyone. Ever.  
  
And although all those bottled-up feelings made him the person he was, they were also what was tearing him apart.


	4. Chapter 4

It was pouring rain and cold. John had the fire going; weather like that always made his shoulder ache. He was bundled in a warm jumper and was updating his blog.  
  
Sherlock was in foul mood—bad weather always put a damper on criminal activity—and couldn’t settle down. He had already abandoned his violin, microscope, and three books and was now attempting to cross-reference the results of some experiments he had done the prior week that had turned his hands (temporarily) a variety of colours.  
  
“This is no good,” he finally announced in exasperation. “I need that other notebook—the blue one. John…?”  
  
“It probably ended up back in that box,” John replied, not even looking up from his laptop. “And before you ask, the box is upstairs. And no, I am not going up to get it for you.”  
  
Sherlock pouted but headed up the stairs. John could hear him rummaging around, moving furniture and boxes. Now that the room was used mainly for storage, it had gotten a bit cluttered. And then he got absorbed in reading responses to their latest case and tuned the noise out.  
  
So it was with a bit of consternation when he realized that fifteen minutes had passed and Sherlock had not come back down. There were no more sounds from upstairs, either. John felt distinctly uneasy. Like with children, when it came to Sherlock, silence was generally not a good thing. “What’s he gotten into now?” the doctor muttered, heaving himself up from his cosy chair and heading up the stairs.  
  
It was cold and from the dim lighting spilling into the hall John realized that Sherlock had only turned on the bedside lamp, not the overhead. The sound of the rain was much louder this close to the roof, and he could hear the wind starting to pick up as well. He grasped the door frame with both hands and leaned in, expecting to see Sherlock collecting mildew samples from the walls or testing the combustibility of the different boxes that littered the room or possibly even dancing, which he did only when he thought he was alone and he had no idea that John knew.  
  
It was none of those things. In fact, the image that greeted John was so unexpected that he froze, his mouth open. Sherlock was sitting cross-legged on the bed with items scattered all across it; an empty box lay on its side on the floor. That in itself wasn’t unusual, of course.  
  
It was the items themselves that had shocked John into immobility. Sherlock looked up, a somewhat faraway look in his eyes. “What?” he asked with a frown.  
  
John blinked. “Just wondering what you’d gotten into up here,” he replied as casually as he could. “What have you got there?”  
  
“It’s…” Sherlock paused and considered something for a second. “It’s a box from the Atkinsons’ flat.” He didn’t look at John.  
  
“Atkinsons… that double murder in Mayfair?” Sherlock nodded, his eyes fixed somewhere in the vicinity of John’s sock-clad feet. “What’s that doing here? Isn’t it evidence?”  
  
“Not really. It didn’t have any direct bearing on the case.”  
  
“How did it get here?”  
  
Sherlock shrugged unconvincingly, his eyes darting to the dark corners of the room.  
  
“So…” John licked his lips. Sherlock was acting very oddly, and it was making him nervous. He had to tread lightly. “What is all that?” he finally managed, sounding as casual as he could while his eyes swept over the objects that surrounded his friend.  
  
“Just things.” His eyes dropped to the items spread around him.  
  
“Do you want to tell me about them?” John entered the room. Sherlock considered this as John took a few steps closer. Finally, he nodded. “All right, then. Tell me.”  
  
“There’s a blanket,” Sherlock commented, holding it up for the doctor to see. It was pink with white polka dots, and it was small.  
  
“Yes?” John took the last few steps and sat on the bed facing his friend. “Go on.”  
  
“Baby wash and an extra-soft flannel.”  
  
“That sounds nice,” John responded kindly, noticing that after Sherlock put the flannel down, he ran his fingers across it.  
  
“And movies.” There was a small stack of DVDs; the image on the top one was of a cartoon character.  
  
“I see that.”  
  
“And a special bowl and plate and a little fork.”  
  
“Oh?” John picked up some pyjamas; they were of blue flannel and clearly styled for a child. Sherlock looked at them keenly before continuing.  
  
“Bottles. Dummies.” Sherlock’s long, white fingers stroked gently over a pink plastic bottle.  
  
“All right…” John put the pyjamas down and hesitantly picked up a dummy, purple and white.  
  
“And nappies.” The packet was open, and he brushed his fingers across the items inside.  
  
“And what…” John paused and cleared his throat. “Why did the Atkinsons have these things? From what I remember, they had no children.”  
  
“They didn’t. Closest children were her three nieces, who live in New York.” John was surprised; why would Sherlock not have deleted that by now?  
  
“So maybe they babysat? Minded a neighbour’s child?”  
  
“I don’t think so.” Sherlock seemed oddly hesitant to say more, even though he hadn’t deduced a thing yet.  
  
“All right. Why don’t you put it all away, and we’ll donate it to charity or something?” John picked up the discarded box and neatly began putting in the items. “Did you find the blue notebook?” he asked as he folded the blanket.  
  
“What?” Sherlock’s mind had wandered. “Oh… yes. I…”  
  
And suddenly John was alone in the room as his flatmate practically ran down the stairs, blue notebook in hand.  
  



	5. Chapter 5

“Sherlock, when was the last time you did something just for fun?”  
  
“I was playing last night,” his mate frowned, meaning his violin.  
  
“Yeah, but you were working on that tricky bit and getting annoyed with yourself for not getting it right. Didn’t look like much fun to me.”  
  
“My experiments can be fun.”  
  
“Only you—and I mean _literally_ only you—would find melting plastic containers with toes in them to disprove someone’s alibi ‘fun.’” John paused, trying to think of the best way to express himself. “I mean, when was the last time you did something just to _do_ it? No rules. No objective.” He held up a warning finger as Sherlock opened his mouth to respond. “And pointing out the scientific inaccuracies of all the James Bond movies does _not_ count.”  
  
Sherlock shut his mouth again, frustrated. John took pity on him. “Let’s go to the zoo,” he suggested.  
  
“What?”  
  
“Let’s go to the zoo,” John repeated patiently.  
  
“We’ve been.”  
  
“That was for a case. I would like to go to the zoo simply to do what most people do when they go to one—look at the animals. Get some fresh air.”  
  
“The air at the zoo is hardly likely to be fresh,” Sherlock responded obnoxiously.  
  
“It’s a beautiful day. Come on.” John reached for their coats.  
  
“You’re free to go by yourself.”  
  
“They have venomous snakes.”  
  
John continued to congratulate himself the entire afternoon.  
  
It was a bit crowded, which sometimes threw Sherlock off, but he seemed all right for the most part. He entertained himself mainly by finding mistakes on the signage and deducing the crowd, but he was outside and not on a case, and that was good enough for John. He did seem to genuinely like the Komodo dragons and the snakes, and for some reason the penguins captured his attention for some time.  
  
Then they entered the Night Life exhibit. It was quite crowded—full of school children—and John had a moment’s consternation as his eyes adjusted. The children mobbed and swarmed around them, shouting to each other.   
  
Sherlock was standing quite rigidly, his jaw clenched tight. Right. John knew that look. It was too noisy and there were too many people and too much to take in and Sherlock would overload sooner rather than later. So John reached his hand out and grabbed Sherlock’s, pulling him out from the middle of the gaggle of students and over to one side.  
  
“Are you all right?” he asked. “Too much?”  
  
Sherlock gave one sharp nod.  
  
“All right. We can leave. Why don’t we go find the otters instead?”  
  
“No…” Sherlock surprised him by gripping his hand back. “You wanted to see the bats. Can we just wait? Those children will be gone soon.”  
  
“Are you sure?”  
  
In response, Sherlock squeezed his hand again, and John squeezed back, and they stood against the wall in the dark, waiting patiently as the voices of the children eventually faded, and neither one of them let go.  
  
*  
  
Finally, as the shadows grew longer, they headed toward home. Sherlock was arguing rather vehemently against Thai for dinner and John was arguing for it—not because he had a particular craving for it, but because sometimes he just liked to piss off Sherlock.  
  
They paused before entering the restaurant (Mexican; which is what both of them had actually wanted). Sherlock, in the lead as usual, stopped and turned to face the doctor.  
  
“John,” he started uncertainly. “I wanted to thank you for… before. What you did.”  
  
“What did I do?”  
  
“In the nocturnal exhibit.”  
  
John thought back over the afternoon. What had he done? “Do you mean, when all those kids were around you? What did I… oh.” He had taken his hand. Right.  
  
Sherlock nodded. “I was overwhelmed, and you seemed to know what to do to help.”  
  
“I grounded you a bit, that’s all,” John replied gently, shrugging his shoulders.  
  
“Still, it was good. Thank you.”  
  
“All right. Now, are you going to actually go into the restaurant, or are you going to just glare at the food through the window?”  
  
Sherlock rolled his eyes at John’s witticism and opened the door.


	6. Chapter 6

“Is it possible to literally die of boredom?” Sherlock whispered to John.  
  
“No, it is not. Shush.”  
  
“I might be the first documented case, then.”  
  
“Sherlock, shush!”  
  
It wasn’t that John wasn’t bored out of his skull as well. They had been forced to attend a banquet put on by the Something-or-Other Society for the Prevention of Harm to Those Boring the Crap Out of Others… John suddenly sat up straight, realizing that he had been wool-gathering, and in that time Sherlock had decided to entertain himself by folding all the napkins he could reach into interesting shapes. John caught his hand just as he was about to whisk one off the lap of the rather ample woman seated on his right and smacked it lightly. “Behave yourself,” he managed to snarl menacingly even while whispering.  
  
“Entertain me.”  
  
John sighed. The situation wasn’t entirely Sherlock’s fault. Well, actually, it was. He was one of the recipients of some token of appreciation—something to do with Sherlock’s generous work with the homeless. Sherlock hadn’t ever intended to attend the function, of course, but Mycroft had somehow forced the issue—John hadn’t heard the entire conversation, but the bits he had gleaned from the hushed but ferocious argument between the brothers involved some sort of threat to have Sherlock arrested for credit card fraud and resulted in a defeated detective reporting despondently that they would be attending a dinner on the twelfth and would John consider a new suit for the occasion?  
  
So there they were, sitting side by side toward the end of an enormous, elegantly set table, John attempting to not fall asleep and Sherlock considering ways of poisoning their fellow guests using nothing but the flowers from the centrepieces while an elderly man with loose dentures mumbled something from what looked like a stack of one hundred note cards, droning on while half the room couldn’t catch most of what he said.  
  
John reached into the pocket of his new suit (purchased courtesy of Mycroft’s credit card) and withdrew a pen. He placed it and the printed program in front of his companion, flipping the booklet so the blank back cover faced up. “Here. Write down everyone in this room who dyes their hair.”  
  
Sherlock’s eyebrows went up, but, having discarded all but the Calla lilies as useful for anything other than decorations, he decided with a huff that he might as well. John nodded in satisfaction and relief as Sherlock picked up the pen.  
  
A few minutes later, John’s eyes wandered to what Sherlock was writing. He was surprised to see that he had drawn a rectangle on the program that obviously represented the table at which they were seated. He was now meticulously making a note about each guest. John leaned over to read the spidery writing, starting with the cushiony matron to Sherlock’s right.  
  
 _Obviously & awful choice of colour_  
  
Then, working anticlockwise:  
  
 _What would the point be?  
  
Used to; doesn’t care now  
  
Hairpiece over natural colour  
  
3 diff. dyes_  
  
And so on, until he had reached John, who was seated on his left. _Of course not_ was the terse note.  
  
John smiled and bent his head to whisper something encouraging when Sherlock surprised him by taking up the pen again. This time he began drawing.  
  
By the time the main speaker had finally droned his last—or possibly died of old age—the back of the program was filled with the top halves of stick figures, sitting nicely around the table, each neatly differentiated by further notes and in some cases skilfully-drawn details.  
  
John stared at it as Sherlock neatly signed and dated the bottom. It was absolutely fascinating to see what the man had chosen to note about each guest. This time he had started clockwise with the person on John’s left:  
  
 _Naturally left-handed; forced to write with rt_  
  
 _Steals sugar sachets_  
  
 _Lies about his job_  
  
By the time he had gone around the table, he had learned that the redhead across from them played the cello—badly, the man with the hairpiece was newly divorced, and a myriad of other details. The illustrations were illuminating as well. “Bad nose job” featured just that. The cellist had a broken bow, and one unfortunate woman now sported a diamond ring labelled “fake” with a large arrow pointing to it.  
  
John nearly bit his lip through trying not to laugh out loud, and Sherlock smiled shyly.  
  
“… and for his generosity not just with donations of funds and clothing but with his time, we thank Mr Sherlock Holmes for his work with the homeless in London.”  
  
The applause covered the sound of John’s laughter.


	7. Chapter 7

Oh, fuck, Sherlock. Yes. Oh, God, yes. Your lips your mouth O my God  
  
All the grown up stuff right now yes  
  
He was melting  
  
Sherlock’s mouth was heaven  
  
Yes mouth yes finger yes THAT fuck me suck me NOW O god you are perfect  
  
Melting sinking pulsing brilliant


	8. Chapter 8

“Sherlock, I’ve got lunch on. Come eat something.” He dished out hot soup into two bowls and placed them on the table, where each place setting already had a plate that held half a toasted cheese sandwich. Having gotten no reply, he sighed and called out again. “Come on. It’s cream of tomato. You _like_ that.”  
  
Still no reply.  
  
John knew that Sherlock was in the bedroom; the flat wasn’t large enough to really misplace a six-foot man. He knew that Sherlock could hear him. Well, that he was within hearing distance, at least, because he was clearly tuning John out.  
  
The doctor debated. He could go into the bedroom and attempt to coax his partner away from whatever he had gotten involved in. Or he could sit down and begin eating while the food was still hot, and screw Sherlock.  
  
 _Screw him royally,_ the older man thought as he resignedly put down his soup spoon after only a few mouthfuls and headed down the hall.  
  
The bedroom door was shut, which was a bit odd. They really only shut it when it was cold or they were attempting to sleep during the day, which was fairly often considering how often they were out all night chasing criminals and harassing Detective Inspectors. Otherwise there was no real need to; Mrs Hudson had learned rather the hard way that knocking before entering the flat was an excellent idea to avoid embarrassment for all involved.  
  
But maybe Sherlock _was_ sleeping, his partner considered. He hadn’t been doing much of that all week, and he had seemed tired and rather pensive that morning. He could possibly have decided to crash for a bit. John opened the door slowly and quietly, just to peek in.  
  
Sherlock _was_ sprawled across the bed. That was fine. He did seem to be sound asleep. That wasn’t unexpected. And he was clutching a stuffed bunny.  
  
Okay.  
  
That’s a little _different,_ John mused, remaining fairly calm. Still, it could be explained. Maybe he was outfitting it with one of those “nanny cams” for a stake-out but he succumbed to his exhaustion instead. Yes, that must be it.  
  
Please, let that be it.  
  
John shut the door as quietly as he could and finished his lunch on his own.


	9. Chapter 9

John, of course, hadn’t mentioned the stuffed bunny—not when Sherlock emerged from the bedroom a few hours later, cranky and muddled and rumpled.  
  
“Do you want something to eat?” the doctor inquired. Not bothering to wait for an answer, he took Sherlock’s unconsumed soup out of the fridge and popped it in the microwave. His flatmate slumped into a chair and buried his head in his hands, elbows on the table. “You all right?”  
  
“Headache.”  
  
“Food will help.”  
  
The younger man poked at the hot soup, swirling patterns with his spoon between mouthfuls. John had been correct, of course, and as it went down, his mood headed up.  
  
“What’s going on in that great brain of yours?” his partner asked affectionately as Sherlock decorated the edges of his nearly empty bowl with droplets of soup.  
  
“I was wondering if the viscosity of cream and clear soups has an impact on how far drops will travel. If the splashes differ in size or shape.”  
  
“And you were wondering this… why?”  
  
“Just wondering. Might come in handy someday.” He looked up at the other man somewhat hopefully.   
  
John sighed and then smiled. “So I’m guessing that means a trip to Tesco and lots of cleaning up after?” Sherlock nodded eagerly and John laughed out loud. “Do you realize how much I love you that I’m actually going to agree to this?” Sherlock nodded again, a bit shyly this time. “You mad man. Do you want to come with me or will you make a list?”  
  
*  
  
Several hours later, John came to the realization that he should have been furious, or disgusted, or both—but he wasn’t. Instead he was giggling as he dampened a tea towel and delicately wiped a bit of mushroom from one of Sherlock’s cheeks.   
  
He had started out in control. Really, he had. As they had headed to the shop, he had laid out some rules. Only tinned soup. Only one tin of each type. If it was available, it was to be the Tesco store brand. There had to be an equal number of cream and clear varieties. And when they were done, all (safe) leftovers were to be packaged up and frozen for later consumption—no wasting food. Sherlock had agreed to the rules and requested John’s input on which soups might be the most popular—he wanted the results to be useful on the broadest spectrum possible.  
  
John was still in control when they got back home with their purchases. Sherlock had outlined his plan and asked if John would assist him.  
  
“To be consistent, we have to ensure that the soup is all at the same temperature,” he explained. “I suggest that you warm the soup one tin at time—use that digital thermometer—and I will see how far droplets of each travels both horizontally and vertically.”  
  
“Vertically?”  
  
“Yes. I’d like to see how far down a wall a drop of soup will run.”  
  
John nodded. He was rather enjoying this. Unlike most of Sherlock’s experiments, he could see the practical application of the results at a crime scene—domestic violent in the form of lethal ladles. That would make a good title for a blog, he mulled.  
  
Armed with four saucepans (two borrowed from Mrs Hudson with explicit and mostly sincere promises to return them clean and undamaged), they began. John heated one soup at a time, starting with the clear ones. When it reached the desired temperature, Sherlock would carefully load a soup spoon and splatter it first toward large sheets of white A4 paper laid edge to edge across the floor. He would then repeat the motion, aiming now toward the wall. John had wanted him to cover that with paper as well, but he thought that the absorbency would change the results. John had checked that they were well up on cleaning supplies and capitulated.  
  
Sherlock then checked and recorded distance, splatter size, and drip lengths as John heated up the next batch, packaged up the leftovers for freezing, and washed the pots for re-use. There were twelve soups total, and they had gotten as far as recording the results of the eleventh in relative peace. The last of the cream soups had just gotten to the proper temperature. John had swivelled, pan in hand, to give it to Sherlock.  
  
Sherlock had been swivelling at the same time, in the opposite direction.  
  
“Shit, Sherlock!” John blurted out at the same time that Sherlock shouted “John, look out!”—and they collided.  
  
“Well,” Sherlock commented drily as they both stared down at their feet in dismay. “That’s a bit larger drop than I was hoping for.”  
  
“I suppose you could brain someone with a saucepan,” John mused, “and that’s what you’d end up with.”  
  
“Interestingly enough, it didn’t all travel downward,” the detective pointed out. He poked one long finger at John’s chest, targeting a blob of soup on his shirt.  
  
“Don’t rub it in, you idiot. It’ll be that much harder to wash out.”  
  
“Not my problem.” There was a small smile forming.  
  
“Because you never do the laundry. How did you manage before I came along?”  
  
“I don’t even remember.”  
  
“Tosser. There’s enough left. Do the last two and then you’re helping me clean this up.”  
  
“Dull.”  
  
“Tough. Come on now. Finish up.” John put the nearly-empty pan on the table and turned back to the sink with the pan from the previous batch. He felt it at the same time that he heard it.  
  
“Oops.”  
  
“Did you just intentionally spray cream of mushroom soup on my back?” he asked coolly, not turning around.  
  
“Of course not, John.”  
  
“No?”  
  
“It’s cream of broccoli.” John could clearly hear the snicker.  
  
“You are _such_ a child.”  
  
“It was an accident!”  
  
“Oh, like this?” John spun around and shot a spoonful of the cream of mushroom at him. It hit him on his right cheek.  
  
Sherlock blinked. “I don’t suppose you could record the size and how far it’s dripping,” he commented drily as he calmly reloaded his spoon.  
  
It took both of them nearly an hour to clean the kitchen, not including the five minutes they had paused to be shouted at by Mrs Hudson—who although she dearly loved her boys and was delighted that they had finally sorted things out between them could get along quite well without some of the more ridiculous bits of their behaviour.   
  
“Really, John. I understand it coming from him, but you should know better,” she had tutted while they both attempted to look contrite. And then she had laughed and shaken her head and went back down to her quiet and clean flat.  
  
And it didn’t count the five minutes during which Sherlock had crawled out from under the table and came face to face with John, who was kneeling down to wipe the lower cupboard doors, and they both had gotten quite distracted by the other and John wondered why snogging on the kitchen floor with a wet sponge in one’s hand was much nicer than one would imagine.  
  
Finally, he disengaged himself from the loveliest mouth in the world. “Come on. Nearly done. Let’s finish up. You need a shower.” Sherlock shook his head grumpily. Snogging was _much_ better than cleaning, as far as he was concerned, and the idea of a shower seemed rather lonely. “Yes. Come on. What’s the matter?”  
  
“I don’t want a shower. I want more kissing,” Sherlock pouted.  
  
“No? But you’ve got—it’s in your hair.” John thought for a second, and then he smiled. “I’ve got it. Finish this—” pointing to the leg of the table, which was beginning to look a bit crusty as the soup dried—“and I’ll fix it. All right?”  
  
Sherlock narrowed his eyes, glaring suspiciously at the older man. “How?” he demanded.  
  
“You’ll see.” John got to his feet and strode down the hall to the bathroom.  
  
Sherlock rinsed his sponge one final time. The kitchen was positively sparkling, in his opinion. He wondered if soup had some magic ingredient that had taken the dirt off the floor—or maybe it was just that they had been a bit busy lately and John had gotten behind on the housework. He squeezed the sponge and deposited it neatly in the dish rack—John was particular about sponges drying completely.  
  
John had a lot of rules like that, he contemplated as he tried to remember which of the pots belonged to Mrs Hudson—he didn’t pay attention to things like that—rules about keeping things clean and refrigerating leftovers and even sterilizing their toothbrushes when they had been ill. Doctor things, he decided. Surely no one else fussed that much about mould growing in the back of the refrigerator—that was hardly his fault anyway; it had been behind the head and he hadn’t seen it.  
  
He was so lost in thought that he startled when said doctor suddenly wrapped himself around his waist, but he recovered quickly and turned around, smiling warmly when he saw that John had removed his soup-encrusted shirt. “All done?” John asked. He nodded. “Good job. Now, let’s get you cleaned up.” He began to walk backwards, pulling the taller man along with him into the bathroom.  
  
Sherlock’s eyes lit up. John had drawn a bath.  
  
“Get that mess off,” the ex-captain commanded, reaching out and unbuttoning Sherlock’s shirt and expertly drawing it off. “And those.” He unfastened Sherlock’s flies and let the elegant but stained trousers slide down to the floor. “Everything, now,” he stated firmly, and Sherlock’s socks and pants disappeared. “Get in.” He guided Sherlock to the tub and held his hand as he stepped in and sat down.  
  
“Oh, that’s nice,” the lanky man sighed as he lay back in the warm water, his eyes closed. A sound made him open them again. He sat up and frowned. John had laid a folded towel on the tile and now knelt down on it. “What are you doing?” he demanded.  
  
“I’m going to take care of the—I’m _fairly_ sure that’s broccoli—in your hair. Lie back.”  
  
And Sherlock discovered that having one’s hair gently washed while in a warm bath was possibly one of the loveliest things ever.  
  
*  
  
It was over far too soon and he grumbled as John pulled the plug and helped him out, but he stopped when John began to gently towel him dry. That was also quite lovely, he decided.  
  
“Come on. Bedroom.” John pulled him along and had him sit on the bed so he could towel his curls. Sherlock smiled dreamily from under the towel. He was completely relaxed. He contemplated kissing John, but he was feeling so very lazy.  
  
John tossed the towel to the floor and reached for the comfortable sleep clothes he had taken out. “Arms up,” he requested, and Sherlock complied. “Now stand up,” and loose pyjama bottoms were slid up to his hips. “That’s much better. My boy is all clean and sweet.” He took Sherlock’s hand and led him into the sitting room, depositing him on the sofa. “Now, I’m going to take a shower, and then why don’t we watch a movie? You can pick.” And he bent down and gently kissed Sherlock on the forehead.


	10. Chapter 10

“What?”  
  
“Nothing.”  
  
“Nothing, my arse. What do you want?”  
  
Their eyes met. The distance between them—just a few inches at this point—narrowed to nothing.  
  
“Oh!” John teased. “ _That’s_ what you want?” He smiled into the kiss. Being engulfed by Sherlock was like—what was it like? Like angels flying down and swooping him up. “That’s so nice,” he managed to murmur between lovely deep and sweet light butterfly kisses. Where had Sherlock picked up those particular skills? And the other ones—the ones that John prayed were now only for him.  
  
And then all thoughts of angels flew out of his head as Sherlock’s long fingers slid into his pyjama bottoms and he sighed in delight and encouragement as that lovely hand cupped his erection and then began a wicked pulling.  
  
And then John moaned as that lovely, perfect mouth began to do what it was clearly most meant to do; as wicked fingers stroked him and left him breathless and begging for more.  
  
As that mouth became more and more insistent  
  
And when he was coming, he…  
  
No  
  
Not one coherent thought


	11. Chapter 11

John had never been more glad for a case to be over. He absolutely _hated_ the ones that involved children, even ones that ended well, as this one had. He thought fondly of the sweet-faced girl they had discovered safe and unharmed and the joy with which her mother and stepfather had scooped her up in a double embrace.  
  
“I’m so glad everything was all right in the end. What if you hadn’t seen her teddy bear?” he commented.  
  
“That wasn’t the only clue,” Sherlock pointed out. “But it was very clever of her to have dropped it so we had something to follow. After her shoes and socks, of course.”  
  
“It must have been hard for her,” the doctor mused.  
  
“Hard? No, I think getting her shoes and socks off would have been harder—she had to avoid attracting attention to what she was doing.”  
  
“That’s not what I meant. I meant it must have been hard for her to drop her teddy bear. She was already so frightened.”  
  
“Oh.”  
  
There was a moment of silence.  
  
“What do you mean?” the detective finally asked, frowning at him.  
  
John suppressed a laugh. He loved it when Sherlock admitted to not understanding something. “I mean, children have teddies to comfort them. She certainly needed a great deal of comfort right then, and she had to give it up.”  
  
“Oh.”  
  
“You do understand that that’s why children have stuffed animals, right?” John prodded. “Or sometimes blankets. They’re something soft and comforting to hold when they need it.”  
  
“I do understand the general principle, yes,” Sherlock replied stiffly.  
  
“I had a yellow teddy I named Paul. Harry was a brat and coloured eyeshadow and blush on him with crayons.”  
  
“You found comfort in a stuffed drag queen?”  
  
John was about to retort angrily when he realized that Sherlock was having him on and laughed instead. “All right, it was pretty funny,” he admitted. “But I was furious at her for ages. Fortunately I had other animals to cuddle with.”  
  
“You had multiple stuffed animals?” Sherlock said slowly. “Why?”  
  
“Once again, comfort. My gran gave me a little hedgehog—she said it reminded her of me.”  
  
Sherlock snorted in amusement. “I can see that,” he nodded.  
  
“Ha ha. And I had a… oh, what was it? Seal? No. Otter! It was an otter. From the zoo.”  
  
Sherlock gave him a long sideways look. “A hedgehog and an otter? Really?”  
  
“Yes, really! Why? What did _you_ have?”  
  
“Nothing.”  
  
“What do you mean, ‘nothing’?” John stared at the detective, who stared dispassionately out the cab window.  
  
“I mean ‘I didn’t have anything.’ No teddy bear or kitty or doggie or bunny or whatever other odd shapes people consider appropriate for soothing children. Certainly no otters.”  
  
“But that’s awful, Sherlock.”  
  
“Why? I had no need for such a subterfuge. Nor a nightlight, nor a blanket…”  
  
“Why not? Surely your parents or someone got you those things.”  
  
“They certainly offered them. I just didn’t see the need.”  
  
John shook his head and was about to say something else when he caught a glimpse of Sherlock’s expression in the reflection in the window and promptly shut his mouth.  
  
It was very rare for his partner to look so sad.


	12. Chapter 12

“John. You’re home.” There was a flurry of motion as Sherlock fussed with something by the sofa.  
  
“Genius. Absolutely amazing,” John teased, slipping off his coat. “Mike got a call; his son was ill so he had to cut lunch short.”  
  
“Oh.”  
  
John looked at him carefully, then walked over to the sofa. “What have you been up to?” he asked casually, kissing Sherlock on the cheek.  
  
“Nothing. Bored.”  
  
John peered at him closely. He had one hand jammed into the pocket of his suit jacket. “What have you got in your hand?” he inquired.  
  
“Nothing.” Sherlock withdrew his hand, showing his empty fingers.  
  
“Umm… did you think that that was actually going to work?” The doctor plunged his hand into the pocket and withdrew… a dummy. “Do I want to know where you got this? Or what you’re doing with it?” John said quietly.   
  
Sherlock shook his head, then shrugged. “Experiment,” he mumbled.  
  
Something caught John’s eye. He looked down alongside the sofa. “Sherlock, what’s in that box?” John asked, nodding his head toward the item where it sat on the sitting room floor.  
  
“Just some things from an old case,” the detective answered hastily.  
  
John crouched down and flipped the box open before Sherlock could stop him. He glanced inside, then looked up incredulously. “This is the box from the Atkinsons’ flat,” he stated. “I thought we agreed that you were going to give those things away.”  
  
Sherlock scowled and turned abruptly away. “We didn’t _agree_ to that,” he muttered angrily.  
  
John stood up and paused for a second, absorbing it all: the look on Sherlock’s face. The tone of his voice. The way he was standing, tense and stiff. Ooh. He had hit a nerve, all right. Lovely.  
  
He changed his tack. He put his hands up in surrender. “All right. We didn’t agree. I didn’t realize it would be such a problem.”  
  
“It’s not a _problem,_ ” his mate argued. “I just didn’t want to.”  
  
“You didn’t want to give away a box full of baby things. Why not?” He reached out to put a hand on Sherlock’s shoulder. Sherlock flinched and pulled away. John’s mouth fell open. “What’s going on with you?” he demanded. “Look at me when I’m speaking to you.” He put both hands firmly on the broad shoulders and turned the taller man until they were face to face.  
  
“I just wanted…” Sherlock attempted.  
  
“You just wanted…?” John echoed encouragingly.  
  
“I just wanted to keep them for a bit.” Sherlock wouldn’t meet his eyes.  
  
John released him and took a step back. “You wanted to keep a box of baby things from a months-old case—items which, if I remember correctly—weren’t even relevant to the case itself.” Sherlock nodded and turned to walk away. “No. We’re still talking,” John scolded. “Get back here. Come sit down.” He sat on the sofa and patted the cushion next to him.  
  
“No.”  
  
John blew out an exasperated breath. “Fine. Don’t sit down. But could you please explain this to me a bit more?” he begged.   
  
“I was doing research.” Sherlock apparently found something on his shoe fascinating, as he locked his eyes on it.  
  
“Research. Okay. What sort of research?”  
  
“What does it matter?” Sherlock burst out.  
  
“I’m just curious,” John replied evenly. “You don’t usually have trouble sharing your research,” he continued. “In fact, there are times when I wish that you did. But this has you upset–”  
  
“I’m not upset!” Sherlock shouted.  
  
“Perhaps if you had said that without shouting, I would believe you.” John folded his arms over his chest.  
  
“I read their email.” The voice was quiet now.  
  
“Excuse me? You read whose email?”  
  
“The Atkinsons’ email.”  
  
“When? Wait. How?”  
  
“Well, I read hers. It was easy enough to figure out her password: her husband’s name and the year they got married. Really. People should be more careful. Or imaginative.”  
  
“Never mind that. When did you read it, and what exactly did you read?”  
  
Sherlock sighed. The ex-army captain wasn’t going to let up on him until he explained himself. “I read them when we were investigating their murders,” he started. That was the easy part, and John nodded in understanding. “And then—“  
  
“Sherlock,” John started slowly. “Did you continue to read them after the case was over? Or… you saved them, didn’t you?” The dark-haired man nodded dolefully. “Why?”  
  
“They were interesting.” John frowned at him and he continued in a rush, “It wasn’t invasion of privacy. Not really. They were both already dead, remember?”  
  
“Bit not good, Sherlock,” John tutted. “We’ve talked about this.”  
  
“Well, I had to read the email; as you may recall we were trying to find the couple who murdered them and I thought that maybe there would be a reference to a holiday or something.”  
  
“No, that part’s fine. I do understand that. It’s the ‘saving and reading them again’ bit I’m having a little trouble with.” John’s mouth compressed into a firm, straight line.  
  
“Not all of them. Just the interesting ones. She had saved them.”  
  
“Sherlock, enough! Would you just tell me what the bloody things said?!” John demanded, standing up suddenly.  
  
Sherlock turned away to face the fireplace, apparently now talking to his skull. “The Atkinsons had a special way of ‘playing’ and they would email each other about it. From the context it seems to have happened when he was away; the emailing, I mean. I imagine that they played in person when he was home.”  
  
“What were they ‘playing’?” John said slowly.  
  
Sherlock took a deep breath. “William Atkinson was the ‘daddy’ and Jordan, his wife, was his ‘little girl.’”  
  
There was a moment of complete silence, finally broken by John.  
  
“I see,” he exhaled, sinking back down onto the sofa.


	13. Chapter 13

It was as if a dam had burst. As soon as he had gotten that part out, Sherlock’s reticence evaporated. He spun back around and strode over to the box on the floor. “Here, look,” he said eagerly, spilling its contents out on the coffee table, then sitting down in front of it. He began to sift rapidly through the items, sorting them into piles. John recognized the things from the first time he had seen the box, but now he found that he was really _looking_ at them. Realizing that they weren’t what they had appeared at first. He looked from the table into Sherlock’s face, and he was alarmed to note the expression that he wore. It was _eager._  
  
“You didn’t notice it before, did you? You didn’t notice that the pyjamas and the nappies were adult-size. Although from what I recall, Jordan Atkinson was actually a tiny woman. Still, clearly not intended for an infant. And the blanket. It’s been laundered in regular washing powder. I believe that people generally use something special for infant laundry, do they not?”  
  
“Sure,” John managed to spit out.  
  
“And the DVDs. Some of them appear to be for very young children, and others are more sophisticated, I suppose you could say. Quite a range.”  
  
“Okay.”  
  
“The dishes have definitely been used.” Sherlock mused silently for a few seconds.  
  
“Do you think he fed her?” John prodded gently.  
  
Sherlock nodded emphatically. “Oh, he did. He mentioned that in an email. And… yes, he did refer to something about getting more jars of food. And she also liked mashed-up bananas.” He passed his hands over the items. He picked up a pink bottle. “She liked warm milk in this. He would hold it for her. He apparently bathed her and she’d play in the bath and he’d dress her and change her. She actually _used_ the nappies. And she slept with a dummy. And a stuffed…” he stopped talking abruptly, looking slightly panic-stricken.  
  
“A stuffed bunny?” John suggested. “It’s in your dresser.”  
  
“Oh.”  
  
“It’s all right, sweetheart.” John reached a steady hand out and grabbed one of Sherlock’s. “You’re finding this fascinating, aren’t you?” he said finally, quietly.  
  
“It _is_ fascinating, John. Age play is rare enough; infantilism is a smaller subculture of that, and nonsexual infantilism is… quite rare indeed.”  
  
John felt a bit sick, but he swallowed and replied slowly, his voice tight. “No, I mean _you,_ Sherlock. Not you the detective. You the person.” The glare he received was meant to be threatening, but John Watson, ex-army captain, didn’t scare easily. Particularly when it involved the dark-haired maniac he made his life with. He looked back calmly, his expression patient and sweet.  
  
“What do you mean?” Sherlock finally murmured, breaking eye contact to examine a bottle of baby lotion. He popped the top and smelled it.  
  
“I mean that a part of you finds this… appealing.” John’s voice was soft and quiet.  
  
“Appealing? What are you… no, I…” Sherlock closed his mouth, his furrowed eyebrows betraying his confusion.  
  
“I mean that you might like to… engage in something like this?”  
  
“What? No! I merely—”  
  
“Come off it, love.” John glanced down at Sherlock’s hands. He was still holding the baby lotion and unconsciously rubbing the bottle.  
  
“You’re suggesting that I, Sherlock Holmes, would find it engaging to drink from a baby bottle and watch something called…”—he paused and looked down—“ _Sarah and Duck_?”  
  
“Well, maybe not that exactly, but… yes. That is what I’m saying.”  
  
“Ridiculous!”  
  
“ _Postman Pat_ is more your speed,” John commented cheekily, picking something up. He moved it in waves in front of himself, looking appealingly at his partner. “And a nice bath, with some boats?”  
  
“You’re mad.”   
  
“You didn’t seem to think it was mad a few minutes ago.”  
  
“That was from a strictly scientific point of view, John!” Sherlock threw the bottle of baby lotion vehemently onto the table and stormed out of the room, leaving John to put everything away, which he did very slowly and thoughtfully.  
  
When he eventually returned to the sitting room, Sherlock refused to look at him, keeping his eyes glued to his mobile. John found the newspaper and sat down with it, holding it up in front of himself. “It’s fine, you know,” he finally offered from the safety of the page-2 headlines.  
  
“What’s fine?” Sherlock spat back.  
  
“All that. It’s all fine.”  
  
“I know it’s fine.”  
  
“So you don’t want to talk about it, then?”  
  
“Good deduction, _doctor._ ” Sherlock stormed into the kitchen, throwing his mobile on the sofa.


	14. Chapter 14

“I am sick to death of this!”  
  
“Then stop bringing it up!”  
  
They glared at each other. John brandished the plate on which the offending lamb and rice sat like a sword, and Sherlock instantly put up a shield in the form of his hand.  
  
“It’s been three days, you idiot. You have to eat!”  
  
“Why?”  
  
John looked at him in amazement. “Really? You want a lesson in… what? Nutrition? Starvation? Honestly, you are the most exasperating man on this planet!” He threw the full plate onto the kitchen table and stormed out of the room.  
  
Not that storming as far as the sitting room was terribly dramatic. Oh.  
  
He grabbed his coat and wallet and keys and stormed out of the flat, down the stairs, and out the door. _Much_ better. He dug his mobile out of his pocket and sent a text and in forty minutes or so found himself taking a strong pull on his first beer (of many, he had decided). “He just drives me mad sometimes,” he seethed.  
  
“Well, you sort of knew that from the first day, didn’t you?” Greg ventured, taking a long pull on his own beer. “Or did you think that you could… _fix_ him?” John glared at him. “Oh. You did, huh? Sorry. Whiskey?”  
  
Several hours later, a very bleary-eyed John dragged himself up the stairs and into the flat. He knew—KNEW—that he’d regret the amount of alcohol he had consumed the next day, but since it was a done deal, there wasn’t much other than water that he could do about it. Water and sleep—that was the ticket.  
  
He tossed his coat in the general direction of… the floor. That was good enough. He was the only one who cared about the state of the flat anyway. He swayed a bit as he went into the kitchen and filled a large glass with water. That was the key, right?  
  
There was something… something he was forgetting. It niggled at him as he wandered into the bathroom, glass in hand, and brushed his teeth (and the fact that he had hit himself in the face with the toothbrush was his business and his alone). He toddled the few steps into the bedroom— _their_ bedroom.  
  
Oh. That was the thing that he had forgotten.  
  
Sherlock was sound asleep in their bed.  
  
He was clutching that stuffed bunny again. And his thumb was in his mouth.


	15. Chapter 15

John did an abrupt about-face that he immediately regretted. He clutched the wall to stop the building from pitching and rolling. Once he was back on dry land, he resolutely walked back into the sitting room, kicked off his shoes, found a blanket, and tipped over onto the sofa.  
  
Fuck the water.  
  
He’d just have the hangover.  
  
All he wanted to do now was fall asleep and hopefully not dream about what he’d seen.  
  
*  
  
That was a really, really stupid decision, he told himself the next morning. The whole thing: the storming out of the flat, the drinking, the crashing on the sofa, and the lack of water. Bad, bad choices, he told himself sternly.  
  
Because what had it accomplished other than to give him a headache that he was positive was actually visible to others? It hadn’t gotten Sherlock to eat (the lamb and rice was now a thoroughly unappetizing, crusty thing probably permanently glued to the plate; he’d bin the whole thing when he thought he could look at it without gagging). Because that was what the issue was, wasn’t it? He considered this, casting his memory back to what he hoped would eventually become just a dim remembrance.  
  
It had certainly started with the pasta. Yes, of course it had.  
  
No, of course it hadn’t.  
  
It had started three days earlier, with the box full of baby things, hadn’t it? That painful discussion hadn’t ended well, and things hadn’t been quite right since then. Sherlock had been rude to the point of being nasty towards everyone, but especially towards John. Despite not having a case, he had found reasons to go out a great deal, especially just as John was getting ready for bed, and he’d reappear in the wee hours of the morning and crash on the sofa or sometimes not sleep at all. He had refused to eat; an offer of food was another thing that would send him down the stairs and out the door in a wave of dark blue Belstaff.   
  
And John had been left alone a great deal, which he absolutely, positively hated. He hated that Sherlock was out in London without him. He worried that he’d get himself hurt. Or that he’d find his dealer. Or a new one. Actually, he was fairly sure that the lanky man was using; the rare moments that he had been in the flat he had resolutely not looked John in the eye and had kept his sleeves down. John was not an idiot.  
  
And John, absolutely fed up, had finally blown it completely by having the audacity to actually make dinner for both of them and to suggest that the thin man actually eat it.  
  
Which brought him right back to the storming out, the drinking, the… yeah. He sighed and sat up, squinting in the mid-morning light.  
  
Was Sherlock home?  
  
Gah. His mouth felt like the bottom of a shoe. Water _now_ would be brilliant. He padded into the kitchen with the large glass he hadn’t drunk the night before, dumped it, and refilled it. He gulped down half of it before glancing down the hall. The bedroom door was shut again.  
  
John Watson sighed and went down the hall, finishing his water.  
  
*  
  
Well, _that_ was a hell of a day, John thought several hours later.  
  
He had opened the bedroom door quietly, expecting to see Sherlock either sleeping or reading; expecting the glare of contempt, or a nasty barb. He was not expecting… well…  
  
Sherlock was lying on the bed, or more precisely on the edge of it, and he was vomiting into a bin.  
  
“Oh, good,” John had muttered, his own headache immediately forgotten. “Shit, Sherlock, what did you get yourself into now?” He took in everything. Sherlock was wearing his trousers, but no shirt. John glimpsed it crumpled on the floor, along with socks. He looked positively awful. John closed his eyes for a second, then opened them again. Nope, still there, and now looking up blearily in his direction, trying to focus through watery eyes. And then he heard something that he hadn’t even realized he wanted to hear—had longed to hear— _needed_ to hear—until he did.  
  
“John. Help.”  
  
Oh, his poor sweetheart. Even if it was his own bloody fault and John was actually a doctor and actually not an idiot and he knew what withdrawal from heroin looked like.  
  
Still, his poor baby.  
  
“Of course I’ll help,” he murmured.


	16. Chapter 16

“Think that’s the last?”  
  
“Stop asking that.” Sherlock managed to sound commanding even as he leaned over the toilet and was sick again.  
  
“So, you’ll be just fine, hmmm? Oh, sweetheart.” That on him being sick yet again. Their snit of the previous few days was completely forgotten as John rubbed his sweet boy’s back. He filled up the glass and handed it to him. “Rinse,” he commanded.  
  
Sherlock nodded and complied, spitting into the loo. He slumped back against the wall, exhausted. “Make it stop, John,” he gasped. And then he had to lean over again. Sherlock could not remember a time he had felt so wretched. The feel of John against him, holding his head, his shoulders—it actually did help. He was so grateful that his blogger was back; was there in the bathroom with him.  
  
“Shhh. It will stop eventually, my love. And then I’ll get you changed and back into bed, all right?” John soothed.  
  
And it finally did. John helped his shaky love up from the bathroom floor after a last swish and rinse of his mouth (he had added mouthwash to the water) and got him into the bedroom. Stripped him of his filthy trousers. Gently dressed him in comfortable, clean sleep clothes. Helped him slide under the fresh sheets he had put on the bed. Tucked him in and kissed his forehead. “Get some sleep,” he had whispered.  
  
“John…”  
  
“Shhh. What?”  
  
“I love you.”  
  
John smiled. “Yeah, I do know that, you git.”  
  
Sherlock was still smiling when he fell asleep.  
  
John left the bedroom door open so he could hear if Sherlock needed him, then crept down the hall to the sitting room, where he retrieved his laptop and started doing some research of his own.


	17. Chapter 17

“Come on, my love. Two bites. That’s all I’m asking.” Sherlock turned away. “What’s the matter?” John finally asked, exasperated.  
  
“Can’t. Don’t make me.” Sherlock’s voice was tight; stressed. Panicked.  
  
John paused. This wasn’t an act. Sherlock was genuinely panicking about having a few bites of a sandwich. Okay. Stop. Stop trying to force him. “All right. Don’t worry about it.” He began to take away the offensive plate. Sherlock frowned. “No, it’s okay. It’s too much for you right now. I’m sorry I was so insistent.”  
  
Sherlock looked anguished. He hadn’t anticipated John capitulating even though he was being deadly serious about not being able to face the food at that moment. He retreated to the safety of the sofa, picking up a book and holding it front of his face, doing a brilliant imitation of a normal man lounging about on a Sunday afternoon.  
  
He heard John approach; felt him seat himself in the crook of Sherlock’s bent legs. He shut his eyes.  
  
“Hey,” said the soft voice.  
  
“What?” he responded flatly.  
  
“I’ve got something for you.” Sherlock thought. Should he open his eyes? “I think you’ll like it.” The familiar voice was encouraging. He opened his eyes and turned his head. He eyed what his flatmate/blogger/doctor/best mate/partner/lover/John was holding.  
  
It was small. Non-threatening. It was a bowl, and it was full of… was it?  
  
“Got some nice sliced banana here,” John supplied helpfully. “Can you sit up and have some? You don’t have to finish it. Just take a taste, all right?”  
  
He sat up.  
  
He took a taste—off the spoon that John very carefully held up to his mouth.  
  
The banana was in warm milk, sweetened with cinnamon sugar.  
  
He ate every bit.


	18. Chapter 18

John sighed and slid into the back seat of the black car that had rolled quietly up along the pavement as he exited the surgery. He was surprised to find Mycroft seated there. “What, were all the abandoned warehouses booked?” he snarked.  
  
Mycroft gave an insincere smile back at this witticism (even though he did actually think it was funny; John was always quick with a quip). “I’m sure you know why I wanted to speak with you, Dr Watson,” he replied calmly.  
  
“I imagine it’s to do with Sherlock’s behaviour over the past several days?”  
  
“Yes, of course. Precisely put.”  
  
“What could you possibly have to say about it that you haven’t already?” the ex-army captain huffed. “Yes, we’ve had a rough few days. Yes, he was using. Yes, we had a _lovely_ time going through withdrawals. But he’s all right now.”  
  
“I’m glad to hear it.”  
  
John waited a beat. He drummed his fingers on his knee, impatient to get home. Because even if he had told Mycroft that Sherlock was all right, he wanted to check for himself. He had hated leaving him alone while he worked.  
  
“There is something I don’t know,” Mycroft finally admitted.  
  
“Something a Holmes doesn’t know? Ooo, let me write down the date for posterity.”  
  
“Please, doctor. As always, I am worried about my brother, and I would like to know what happened to set off his… _habit._ ” The last word left Mycroft’s mouth as if it left a bad taste behind.  
  
“And that’s actually none of your business.”  
  
“If it endangers him, yes, it actually is. Did you have a… what does that charming Mrs Hudson call it? A ‘domestic’?”  
  
“Yeah. You got it. He left the top off the toothpaste tube and I got the wrong kind of orange juice. It was horrible.”  
  
“Your sarcasm isn’t helping, you know.”  
  
“Helps me,” John shrugged, looking out the window. “Can you get the driver to aim for Baker Street? I’d like to get home.”  
  
“John.”  
  
The tone had John whipping his head around. _What the hell was that?_ he wondered. Did Mycroft just sound—genuinely upset?  
  
“All right. Sorry. We had an argument about some items left over from a crime scene. I wanted him to get rid of them and he didn’t want to.”  
  
Mycroft’s eyebrows lifted impressively. “Is that all?” he huffed. “What in heaven’s name did he have?”  
  
“That’s not important.”  
  
“Apparently it is or he wouldn’t have put up such a—fuss.”  
  
“Nope. It wasn’t even actual evidence. Just some things from someone’s flat. Oh, a murder victim, so she won’t be missing them.”  
  
Mycroft pursed his mouth. “Don’t you think that a bit odd, even for my brother?” he finally mused.  
  
John paused. _Yes,_ he wanted to say, _it is more than a bit odd, Mycroft. Your brother has apparently developed an attachment to some baby bottles and dummies and… other things._ Instead, he cleared his throat. “Maybe,” he said cagily instead.  
  
“Do you still have them?”  
  
John blinked. In the flurry of arguments, stormy silences, alcohol-laden regrets, and of course hours of fun in the loo, he had sort of lost track. Ironic, he realized, considering that the rest of his fabulous week had been filled with research of a somewhat odd and somewhat specific nature directly related to said items.  
  
“I’m not sure,” he replied honestly. “Been a bit… ah… chaotic, you know?”  
  
“If you still have them, do you intend to get rid of them?”  
  
And once again, John was honest as he shook his head. “Not now. They’re harmless, and if it’s going to upset my… Sherlock so much, of course I won’t.”  
  
“Very well, doctor. Ah. I see we’ve arrived. I would invite myself up, but I have a meeting shortly that I simply can’t be late for.”  
  
John emerged from the black car into the darkening evening and ran eagerly up the stairs to the flat.


	19. Chapter 19

“Sherlock? I’m home.”  
  
“I can see that, John,” the detective sighed. “What did Mycroft want?”  
  
“How did you… never mind. He just wanted to review our fabulous week in embarrassing and excruciating detail.”  
  
“So he knows I… shit.”  
  
“Sherlock!” His companion rarely swore. “I don’t want to hear that kind of language from you.”  
  
“Why not? You use it all the time.”  
  
“That’s not the point.”  
  
“What is? Oh, never mind. I’m too tired to argue.”  
  
John was immediately at his side. “Do you feel all right?” He stroked the angular cheek.  
  
“I’m not sure.”  
  
Sherlock wasn’t sure about something? John grabbed a bony wrist and began counting.  
  
“I’m all right. I’m just tired,” he protested. “And…”  
  
“And what?” John gently pinched the skin on the back of Sherlock’s hand.  
  
“My eyes hurt.”  
  
“Do they? Let me see.” John tipped Sherlock’s head back gently. “Oh, yeah. They’re inflamed and a lovely shade of crimson.”  
  
“Crimson? You’ve been using your thesaurus?” the dark-haired man smiled.  
  
“Mmm. I think they’re just irritated. What did you get into today?”  
  
“I was upstairs for a bit.”  
  
John looked at him sharply. “What were you doing up there?”  
  
“I mislaid some sheet music. Was looking for it.”  
  
“Ah. Well, I suspect you got some dust or something in them. Come to the bathroom and let me bathe them.”  
  
Sherlock followed his doctor obediently down the hall. John found the eye wash cup (yes, they had one) and had Sherlock sit on the closed lid of the toilet while he flushed the (oh even bloodshot and swollen they are amazing eyes and John could get lost in them) sore eyes. He then dosed him with some allergy medicine and led him back out to the sofa. “Close your eyes. I’ll get a cold flannel for you,” he instructed.  
  
Thus arranged, Sherlock sighed in relief. “That’s better already,” he admitted.  
  
“No computer or reading for a bit, all right?”  
  
“Dull.”  
  
John smiled at his ridiculous sweetheart, draped over the sofa like the heroine in one of those awful romance novels Mrs Hudson read. Which gave him an idea. “Then how about I read to you?” he suggested.  
  
“Would you? That would be nice.”  
  
“Of course. What book do you want?”  
  
“I was thinking the newspaper.”  
  
“Nope. Reading headlines aloud always seems to lead to trouble. How about I pick an actual book?”  
  
Sherlock considered this. John was a danger junkie. He would probably pick something fairly exciting, wouldn’t he? He nodded in agreement, listening as John got his tablet, searching through his e-books for something.  
  
“Ah! Here we go. You’ll like this.”  
  
“What’s it called?”  
  
“I’m not going to tell you. I’m just going to start reading, and you’ll have to deduce the title.” John settled himself in his chair.  
  
“Very well.”  
  
“Good. Here goes:  
  
 __

> Chapter One: A Fellow Traveller
> 
> England!
> 
> England after many years!
> 
> How was he going to like it?
> 
> Luke Fitzwilliam asked himself that question as he walked down the gangplank to the dock…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Agatha Christie--Murder Is Easy


	20. Chapter 20

John reviewed the data that he had been collecting. He had started his online research at home, but with the amount of time Sherlock spent on his laptop and hovering over his shoulder, the privacy he wanted was virtually impossible. Instead he began to use a computer at the surgery, slipping in a few hours early or staying late. Sherlock was never too keenly focused on John’s work schedule unless it interfered with a case, so he didn’t seem to notice.  
  
And besides that, Sherlock had been preoccupied in his own right the past few weeks. He hadn’t had a case recently (other than that thing with the kittens that had somehow been related to the six different kinds of jams that had appeared in the fridge one afternoon and John sometimes just didn’t have the energy to ask), but he was being surprisingly calm about it. He hadn’t been doing much in the way of experiments, either (except, of course, for the jam, which had John raging at him and then supervising as he cleaned up the sticky mess). He’d been playing his violin a bit, but not composing or apparently trying any new pieces. In fact, John wasn’t sure _what_ his lover had been up to, especially when he was at work. Mrs Hudson hadn’t complained once—oh, except about the kittens, two of whom had managed to tumble down the stairs.  
  
When John was home, it was a completely different story. Sherlock was—John was a bit alarmed to realize—attentive. Eager. Sweet. Affectionate.  
  
Very affectionate.  
  
Extremely affectionate.  
  
Of course, when it came to being affectionate, with Sherlock it was rather—Sherlock-centric. It usually started with the taller man suddenly being very close to John; most often wrapping his long arms around John’s waist from behind while he did the washing up or something equally domestic and peppering kisses on John’s neck, throwing in occasional nibbles. John would eventually turn around so he could look into his lover’s amazing eyes and drink in the sweet smile that he knew was reserved specifically for him.  
  
From there the next order of business was the snogging. In this they were quite well matched—taking turns initiating; following the other’s lead. John rather liked this part even when he got a crick in his neck from tipping his head up.  
  
But eventually Sherlock would take over and they would end up in the bedroom or on the sofa or on more than one occasion the kitchen table and then it was aces wild and anyone’s bet what would happen next but the end result was generally the same: both of them sweaty, their clothing scattered around them, and them laughing—John in his high-pitched giggle and Sherlock in his deep chuckle.  
  
But recently things had been different. Sherlock was still slipping up behind John; still wrapping himself around the shorter man. But lately it seemed to stop right there. Instead of kissing and nibbling at the back of John’s neck and his ears until he squirmed, Sherlock would simply nuzzle him: bury his nose in John’s hair and hum in contentedness, sometimes making a small noise of protest when John eventually turned around.  
  
And when Sherlock was in this mood, John tended to initiate the kissing. And the kisses themselves were different—soft, innocent. He would gently kiss his cheeks, his nose, his chin, his neck. And then he’d get a bit more serious and his mouth would find Sherlock’s. And sometimes Sherlock would begin to respond and things would proceed as usual, and sometimes he seemed content just to be covered in soft butterfly kisses.  
  
Today was one of those days. John had had his back to his flatmate, shelving some books, when he felt the familiar arms wrap around him. He smiled. “Hello, love,” he said quietly.  
  
The only response was a sigh of contentment as Sherlock tucked his nose behind John’s right ear and breathed him in. John wrapped his hands around the thin arms that encircled him, holding them tightly together. He had already sensed that today was more of a cuddle day than a kissing day, and that was fine. Instead of turning around immediately, he began to gently rock them, turning slightly left and then right.  
  
After a few minutes, he did turn. Sherlock’s eyes were closed and his mouth was slightly open; he seemed completely relaxed. “Do you know what I would like to do?” he said as softly as he could.  
  
“Mmm?”  
  
“I would like to cuddle with you in bed; maybe take a nap?”  
  
“Mmm,” came the assent.  
  
So John took Sherlock’s hand and led him down the hallway and into their bedroom and onto the bed, where he spooned up behind his sweet boy and carded his fingers through the dark curls until the younger man’s breath evened out and slowed and he was asleep.


	21. Chapter 21

Another new thing was how meals proceeded. After the “rice incident” and the “sandwich speed bump,” John had been spending some time on various cooking websites. He did this research on his own laptop; he knew that Sherlock would express no interest, although if he had, he might have noticed the preponderance of websites dedicated to feeding picky eaters and fussy toddlers.  
  
He didn’t, of course, make smiley-face pizzas, but he did make pizza muffins. Individually-sized quiches. Bite-sized apple muffins. Mini fish pies. He had invested in some new kitchen gear to accomplish this, but that was fine. He had definitely found something that worked. Sherlock was _much_ more likely to eat a normal-sized meal if it was offered in these smaller portions, and not all at once.  
  
He also found that offering a spoon instead of a fork, and finger foods, was a hit.  
  
“That was good, John,” Sherlock would comment, licking a last bit of a shepherd’s pie made in the new ramekins off his spoon.  
  
“There’s another one if you’d like,” he offered. “Or we could split it.”  
  
And more often than not, Sherlock would agree.


	22. Chapter 22

“What in _heaven’s_ name is that?” Sherlock exclaimed as he strode in the sitting room.  
  
John glanced up at him. “It’s a pirate ship model kit,” he explained, looking back down at what he was doing. “Thought that was rather obvious.”  
  
“I meant what’s it doing here?” Sherlock took two steps closer to the desk, a frown on his face.  
  
“I’m putting it together. Once again, fairly obvious.”  
  
There was a pause. John carefully unfolded the directions, glancing from them to the still-unpacked parts. Sherlock took another step closer.  
  
“Why?”  
  
“Because it’s fun?”  
  
Now Sherlock was behind his flatmate. He peered over his shoulder, scowling. “There’re a lot of parts,” he commented.  
  
“That’s sort of the idea.”  
  
“You’ll have to paint them.”  
  
“Got paint and brushes, yeah.”  
  
“They’re very small.”  
  
“Steady hands, remember?”  
  
“It’s going to take you forever.”  
  
“It’s about the doing of it, not the end product.”  
  
Sherlock huffed. John felt his warm breath on the back of his neck. “Seems an odd thing for a grown man to do,” he commented.  
  
“This from the man who constructed an arboretum in the kitchen in the hopes of attracting fairies.”  
  
“That doesn’t count. That was Mrs Hudson’s elderberry wine.”  
  
“Yes, and weren’t you in just a lovely mood next day?”  
  
Sherlock stood up straight and the back of John’s neck felt cold. There was a moment of silence. John began to carefully remove the moulded plastic parts from the packaging.  
  
And then—finally—a small voice.  
  
“Can I help?”  
  
John was glad that Sherlock was still behind him; he didn’t have to try to disguise his grin.


	23. Chapter 23

Eventually, they had been called on a case. Greg had gotten in touch. Neither one of them was surprised; the series of corpse couples had been popping up all over London with greater and greater frequency. It had started with the pair over which John and Sally had argued and escalated from there.  
  
“Newest pair—Hyde Park again,” the Detective Inspector explained.  
  
“Hmm. Interesting. It seems as if we’re back where we started. We’ll be right there.”  
  
So John didn’t have the opportunity to entice Sherlock’s appetite with the baked fish sticks for which he had purchased the ingredients, but that was fine because after the lassitude of the past month, Sherlock was back in peak form.  
  
The crime scene was easy enough to spot from a distance; large spotlights had been brought in to push back the approaching evening. “Missed this?” Lestrade asked as he and John stood side-by-side, watching Sherlock swoop around the corpses that had been propped up in a grotesque parody of a lovers’ picnic, complete with blanket and basket. “What’ve you two been up to, anyway? I mean, last time I saw you, things weren’t very—harmonious.”  
  
“Oh, nothing much. But things are better, ta.”   
  
“Looks like a small-breed dog,” the consulting detective remarked, peering into the basket. “That’s new.”  
  
“Uh, no thanks,” the doctor muttered, declining a look at the dead dog with a polite shake of his head. Dogs were not his area. “Interesting mode of transportation, though,” he mentioned as an afterthought, meaning the basket.  
  
Sherlock suddenly stood stock still and his eyes opened wide. “Oh, that’s it! John, you’ve done it again. You’re brilliant!”  
  
“I have? I am?”  
  
“Yes! _Transportation!_ What mode of transportation did the killer use to get the bodies here? It would have to be something inconspicuous. Something in common to all the crime scenes… something… Lestrade! Look for a wheelbarrow!”  
  
“What?”  
  
“Yes! Think about it. Where have the bodies been placed? I mean, what sort of settings?”  
  
Lestrade began to tick off the locations in order: “Park. Construction site. Private garden of that posh house…” he paused as his eyes grew wide. “Stables. Zoo. Another construction site. Back to the park. Oh, God!” Donovan and Anderson, attracted by the flutter of conversation, came over.  
  
“You mean the murderer was hauling around the bodies at all those sites in a wheelbarrow?” John interjected.   
  
“Yes, exactly! What’s the best way to be inconspicuous? By blending right in, in plain sight. Throw on some work clothes and gloves, and not a single person would question what he was moving.” Sherlock wheeled around sharply, looking intently at the ground, shielding his eyes from the glare of the spot lights. “There!” he finally pointed. “Single tire track. Even Anderson will be able to make a cast from that and match it to the wheelbarrow.” Anderson glared at him, then stalked off to get his kit.  
  
“Well, yeah,” Donovan agreed reluctantly, “except that doesn’t bring us any closer to knowing _who_ did it, which is sort of the point.”  
  
Sherlock made an exasperated noise. “Do you _listen_ to yourselves? You certainly don’t listen to me. Think!”  
  
“He’s having a second go round,” Lestrade stated slowly; firmly. “Next stop would be that first construction site. Sergeant, set up…”  
  
“Yeah. Surveillance. Right on it, boss!”  
  
“I’d stake out all of the locations, Detective Inspector, just in case he doesn’t repeat the exact same order,” Sherlock added.  
  
“Do you think that’s likely?”  
  
“I think he might realize that he’s tipped his hand by starting the cycle over and will probably be anticipating surveillance at the next most likely site, but he won’t be able to stay away from all of them. He’s far too ingrained—too caught up in his little game—to try anywhere new, and he’s not going to stop now, that’s for certain.”  
  
“Takes one psychopath to know another,” Donovan remarked cattily.  
  
“Enough,” Lestrade said tiredly, holding up his hand. “Go on. Make the arrangements.” He watched her stomp away, mobile to her ear, ensuring that everyone was out of earshot before he turned back to the detective and the doctor. “Uh… thanks, mate,” he said awkwardly.  
  
Sherlock tipped his head slightly, looking at the D.I. in puzzlement. “Don’t thank me,” he replied. “Thank John. Once again he’s provided me with the catalyst at exactly the right moment.” And then he lowered his voice and looked fondly at the shorter man, who was almost blushing at this praise. “I could _kiss_ you, John,” he murmured.  
  
“Hey. None of that here. It’s still a crime scene,” Lestrade chuckled. “And speaking of, go on home now. We’ve got it from here.”


	24. Chapter 24

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Sherlock huffed.  
  
“There’s no one to see,” John pointed out, practically running to keep up with his companion.  
  
“That’s not the point.” Sherlock lengthened his strides.  
  
“Then what is?” And John stopped.  
  
Sherlock stopped as well, whirling around to glare at the older man. “We were here to look at two dead bodies, John. Not to have a… lark.”  
  
“Sherlock, you consider looking at dead bodies a lark!”  
  
“That’s different.”  
  
John shook his head. “Well, I’m going. I just want to see it.” He made a half turn, getting his bearings and then walking briskly away from the consulting detective.  
  
He grinned to himself a few minutes later when the familiar footsteps caught up with him, glancing over as Sherlock caught up with him and began to walk alongside. “Changed your mind?” he inquired casually.  
  
“You shouldn’t be walking through the park alone after dark.”  
  
“No?” John challenged in amusement.  
  
“We did just see two murder victims,” the dark-haired man pointed out.  
  
“True. How thoughtful of you.”  
  
“Where is it?”  
  
“Right over here.”  
  
John led the way, reflecting that he had been spending perhaps a bit too much time with Sherlock. Before him, John had been quite well behaved. He actually followed rules and abided by laws. But now—it was after closing time, and did he hesitate? Not even slightly.  
  
And there it was. John wished it wasn’t quite so dark. He would have loved to get a better look at Sherlock’s eyes as they approached—a pirate ship.  
  
Right there in Kensington Gardens—it was the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Playground—and it was glorious. Inspired by J.M. Barrie’s _Peter Pan,_ the playground also featured tepees and some other features, but the centrepiece and John’s goal was the large wooden replica of Captain Hook’s pirate ship. During regular hours, the play area was so popular that there was often a queue to get in, but now, nearing midnight on a relatively warm evening, it was empty.  
  
Sherlock just stared.  
  
After a minute, John broke the silence. “So? What do you think?”  
  
“It’s… impressive.”  
  
“So…?”  
  
“So what?”  
  
“So, do you want to take a look?” John gestured toward it. Sherlock glanced sideways at him. And finally he moved toward it. He glanced back at John, who nodded encouragingly.  
  
Sherlock didn’t run. He didn’t shout or laugh out loud. But he did swing himself up the rope gangway with a certain eagerness that John hadn’t seen in a long time. The doctor found a bench and sat and just watched as his flatmate—and oh he was so much more than that—climbed and explored and swung and was on the lookout for whales, or sharks, or other ships, or whatever was going on in his head.


	25. Chapter 25

“All right, John. Would you please mind explaining to me what you’ve been doing?”  
  
“What do you mean—“  
  
“Don’t play dumb. You know exactly what I’m talking about,” Sherlock snarled, coming to a halt and bringing John up short as well.  
  
“No, maybe I don’t know. Why don’t you tell me?” John responded quietly.  
  
“How could you not… oh. You just want to me to say it.” Sherlock pulled away, turning his back on the doctor but making no move to walk away.  
  
“Yeah. Maybe I do. And maybe this is not a conversation that we should be having in the middle of the pavement in front of the British Museum.”  
  
“I don’t care. I want to talk about this right now,” the dark-haired man demanded.  
  
“All right. Then let’s find somewhere to sit and we’ll talk, all right? How about over there?” John indicated a bench with his free hand and gently tugged Sherlock in its direction with his other. Which is exactly what Sherlock wanted to talk about and they both knew it.  
  
*  
  
It had not been a pleasant morning. Sherlock was cranky. He didn’t want any breakfast, even after John made him eggy bread and cut it into soldiers and practically drowned it in condensed milk. Nothing was making him happy—or, from John’s point of view—everything was making him unhappy. And being Sherlock, he wasn’t keeping any of this information to himself.   
  
The problem was:  
  
One of his favourite shirts had been misplaced at the dry cleaners.  
  
The new tenants (not on Mrs Turner’s side but the other one) played their telly too loudly.  
  
The hot water heater was broken and Mrs Hudson was having a hard time finding an available repair person.  
  
The plug on his mobile charger had somehow gotten trodden on and was now difficult to plug in.  
  
John had suggested painting the bedroom light blue.  
  
He didn’t like the way his hair looked, having had only a very short, very cold shower in which to wash it.  
  
John’s blog was getting more hits on his ridiculous comment about the rain two days ago than Sherlock’s website had gotten all week.  
  
It was Thursday.  
  
“Wait. What? You’re complaining because it’s Thursday? Oh, come off it, Sherlock! You’re being impossible today. Did you not sleep well?”  
  
Sherlock huffed. John knew perfectly well that Sherlock hadn’t slept well, because he was in the same (not light blue) room, in the same bed, and how could he somehow manage to sleep when the new tenants next door had their telly on too loud?  
  
“Well, someone needs a distraction,” the older man stated firmly. “Come on. Get your shoes on.” He moved to get their coats out.   
  
Sherlock frowned. “Why?” he demanded.  
  
“Because I’m going to take you somewhere that I think you’ll like.”  
  
And John hadn’t been wrong. After a great deal of whining, a bit of foot stomping, and only a little shouting, he had managed to get his boy to their destination.  
  
“The British Museum? Really?” he had groaned.  
  
“Yes, really. There’s an exhibit that I think you’ll find very interesting.”  
  
And that’s when it started. Because Sherlock clearly had no intention of going into the museum and John clearly had every intention of getting him into it. So John simply grabbed Sherlock’s hand and pulled him along.  
  
“What are you doing?” he yelped.  
  
“Taking you in there,” John said calmly, pointing up the steps. “And then we’re going to Room 68, and we are going to see the hands-on money exhibit.”  
  
Sherlock finally stopped, forcing John to the do the same. “The what?” he demanded.  
  
“They have a series of exhibits where you can actually touch—handle—artefacts. One of them features all sorts of money. I know you like to… that you’re very tactile, and I think that you’ll really like it. And then, if you’re behaving decently, we can get some lunch at the café.”  
  
John started walking again, and Sherlock had to take a few quick steps so as not to get his arm yanked off. And John hadn’t let go until they were safely in Room 68.  
  
And for the most part, it had gone fairly well. The exhibit had sounded like something they would both find interesting. And as John knew, Sherlock _was_ extremely tactile. Being able to actually touch the ancient coins would keep his interest far longer than a few items in glass cases. In fact, John was congratulating himself on an excellent plan, well-executed, and just about to suggest lunch when it happened.  
  
What a sad thing it was, he reflected a bit later, that the nice American uni students had chosen that moment to take a peek at the exhibit as well. He hoped they didn’t let it dampen their entire visit. Although it had been pretty dismal.   
  
They had entered quietly, and for Americans, they were surprisingly polite and respectful. They chatted with each other and the volunteer who was explaining the exhibits. And then one of them said or did something—and John never did discover what—that had caught Sherlock’s attention.  
  
Shit.  
  
“You know she wants to sleep with you and you want to sleep with her. Why don’t you just get it over with before you go back to your rather ample-bosomed girlfriend and she goes back to her abusive boyfriend?”  
  
“Excuse me?” the young man had responded. The young lady moved closer to him. The volunteer took a step back.  
  
“Sherlock,” John hissed in warning.  
  
“You heard me. All that time you spend together—look at you! Hasn’t it even occurred to you yet? Or are you trying to be--faithful? Idiots.” The students looked wildly at each other, and the young woman took a step away from her companion this time.  
  
“Sherlock,” John seethed and reached out a hand, grasping the sharp elbow.  
  
“You must have remarkable self-control. Most people your age go at it like rabbits. Or is it something else? Hmm?”  
  
The volunteer slipped out of the room, presumably to call security.  
  
Sherlock was glaring at the couple, who were staring back at him, paralyzed. “No. It’s not self-control, is it? You won’t have sex because you can’t. Because… which one… him. He’s got a nasty social disease, and until the medication—“  
  
“Sherlock! That’s it!” John shouted. “You are coming with me right now!” And he grabbed Sherlock’s hand and yanked him clean out of the room, for once not pausing to apologize about the wreckage that was so often left in the detective’s violent wake.  
  
*  
  
And that brought them there, to the bench outside the museum, and it wasn’t until they were seated that John deigned to release his grip on the bony hand. Sherlock scowled at him and rubbed it melodramatically.   
  
John rolled his eyes. “Oh, knock it off,” he instructed.  
  
“No. You’ve been manhandling me all day, and I want to know why.”  
  
“Manhandling you? I don’t know what you’re talking about,” John replied sarcastically.  
  
“Oh, please. You started right after we left the flat.”  
  
“Started what?” John goaded. He really did want Sherlock to say it. He hadn’t wanted it to be like this, but there was often more than one road to a destination.  
  
“Holding my hand.”  
  
“I’ve been doing what?” John said, feigning surprise.  
  
“You’ve been holding my hand all day, and I don’t mean in that stupid, romantic way that people do—you wouldn’t do that in public, even now. No. You’ve been yanking me around like a disobedient…” and his words petered out as he realized what he had just said.   
  
“Like a disobedient what?” the ex-army captain prodded, a surprisingly calm expression on his face. “When was the first time?”  
  
“When…” Sherlock frowned. “When we were crossing the street.”  
  
“Yes. And do you know why?”  
  
“I don’t… I can’t think here.”  
  
“Why did I take your hand when we were crossing the street?”  
  
“I don’t know. I wasn’t paying attention,” Sherlock sputtered.  
  
“There you go!” John announced. “That’s it. That’s right.”  
  
“What’s right?” Sherlock was getting extremely frustrated. He knew that the conversation had something to do with more than just holding hands, but he couldn’t put a finger on it. Emotion… somethings. They always tripped him up.  
  
“I took your hand because you weren’t paying attention, and we were about to cross a busy street, and I wanted you to be safe. And then I held your hand when we got here because you weren’t being terribly cooperative about going in. And then I had to hold your hand to get you out of there because you were being extremely naughty, and now you’ve ruined a perfectly nice day out, and I have no intention of taking you out for lunch. Let’s go.”  
  
John stood up.  
  
Sherlock just sat, his mouth open.  
  
“Come on. We’re going home.” And John did it again. He took Sherlock’s hand and pulled him up off the bench. “You can think about it on the way.”  
  
And Sherlock did. They didn’t say a word to each other the whole way back, and John didn’t let go of Sherlock’s hand once.


	26. Chapter 26

It was now late afternoon. Upon returning home, John had finally released him, and Sherlock had retreated to the bedroom. John had thrown together a quick lunch, knowing that Sherlock wouldn’t be eating it, and he really didn’t have much of an appetite for it, either. He had then thrown himself into his chair and was now rather viciously reading the paper, folding it violently (he hadn’t known that you _could_ fold anything violently until he started living with Sherlock).  
  
It was getting dark enough that John had just turned on the lamps when he heard a small noise. His mad flatmate had finally reappeared. Judging from the rumpled state of his usually neat buttoned shirt and trousers, he had been lying down. His eyes were puffy and his hair was a mess. He looked miserable.  
  
“Would you like something for tea?” John asked gently. Sherlock nodded. “Go wash up,” John instructed as he started making cheddar cheese and tomato sandwiches, cutting Sherlock’s into triangles and putting only half of them on his plate for the first go-round.  
  
They ate in silence, and John didn’t even say anything when Sherlock left his crusts on his plate and dragged himself to the sofa. After doing the washing up, John seated himself at the desk, sorting through the mail. He waited patiently.  
  
And finally—finally—Sherlock broke the silence. “What was today about, John?” he asked quietly.  
  
“What do you think it was about?”  
  
“I don’t know. I don’t understand.”  
  
“What don’t you understand?” John put the bills down and gave Sherlock his full attention.  
  
“What you said. What you did. How I _felt_ about it.” John wasn’t sure what was making him feel worse—admitting that he didn’t understand something or that he had felt something. Both were never comfortable places for Sherlock to go. He took pity on him and decided to offer a bit of guidance.  
  
“What I said? When?”  
  
“About me. About me being--“ he stopped, unable to go on.  
  
“About you being a complete dickhead?”  
  
Sherlock nodded.  
  
“What don’t you understand? You must understand that the way you were behaving was unacceptable,” John said reasonably.  
  
“Yes, that I understand. I know I’m not supposed to attack-deduce. That’s not it. It’s what you _called_ it. That word.”  
  
“Which word?” John thought about it for a second. _Christ. He had called him naughty._ “Oh. Right.”  
  
“And when you—your hand. My hand. You’ve never done that before in public—well, except for that little incident with the handcuffs.”  
  
“I explained why I did that.”  
  
Sherlock nodded in agreement. “But—the way it—the way it made me feel. I don’t understand it.” He looked at John imploringly.  
  
“How did you feel?”  
  
“I felt _safe._ ” Sherlock squirmed around until he was curled face-first into the sofa cushions as John rose and walked over to him.  
  
“Yeah?” he said thoughtfully, sitting on the coffee table and starting to rub the bony back. “I did that? I made you feel safe?”  
  
Sherlock nodded, further tangling his curls as they brushed against the cushion. “Yes,” he finally continued. “I felt like… like I didn’t have to worry about where we were going or what we were doing. I didn’t have to decide if we were going to take the bus or walk or get a taxi. And I liked that you called me on my behaviour. I knew I was being rude—I really did—but I just couldn’t seem to shut up, and you did it for me. And then you brought me home and made me eat.”  
  
John continued rubbing his back while they both let this sink in. He was trying to think of the best way to say the next bit. It was crucial that he got it right. He thought about all the research he had been doing; all the blogs he had been reading.  
  
“Sweetheart,” he finally said softly. “Do you mean you liked it when I took care of you?”  
  
“John, I like it _whenever_ you take care of me—when you remind me about appointments and you wash my hair and you check my bruises and you shout at Donovan and you tell me when I’m being rude and you hold my head when I’m being sick and I love it when you make me food that’s not too much and you help me fall asleep when I can’t.” He stopped and John could feel him trembling.  
  
“So, you like it when I act like a daddy?”


	27. Chapter 27

That was enough for one day, John had decided. He had let Sherlock lie still for a few minutes as he continued to rub slow circles on his back. Then he gently reached over and found a hand. Turned him to face the room. Pulled him to sit up. Leaned forward and kissed his forehead. “Come on, love,” he whispered against it. “It’s time for a certain little consulting detective to be in bed.”  
  
He rose and pulled Sherlock to his feet, leading him first into the bathroom. “Time to clean our teeth,” he nudged, handing the taller man his toothbrush and taking up his own. “All done? Good boy. Now use the loo,” he gently instructed. “Little boys need to sit down for that.” Sherlock sat. When he was done, John took his turn, and then helped Sherlock wash his hands.  
  
And now he led him into the bedroom. He wasn’t the slightest bit surprised to see that the duvet was rumpled, and that a certain stuffed bunny had been abandoned on the pillows. He dug out sleep clothes for both of them. “Let’s get all this off,” he suggested, unbuttoning the dress shirt and undoing Sherlock’s flies and helped him into his nice, soft sleep clothes. John changed himself quickly.  
  
“Okay, under the covers.”  
  
His obedient little boy smiled sweetly as his daddy handed him his bunny.


	28. Chapter 28

The next morning, the first thing that John thought, before he was even completely awake, was _What the hell have I gotten into?_  
  
He glanced over at Sherlock, who was still out cold. Surprisingly, as far as John could tell, he had slept through the night. Usually he only did that during a post-case crash. John twitched the covers back. Yes, he was still holding the stuffed bunny.  
  
Hum.  
  
That was as good a place as any to start. John considered what he wanted to do while he slowly put together some breakfast. Very slowly, he realized—he was procrastinating, and now the coffee was cold and the toast looked a bit forlorn. He peeked into the bedroom. Sherlock had rolled over but he was still asleep.  
  
John thought about it for a moment. He sighed. Squaring his shoulders, he marched up the stairs to the second bedroom.  
  
He didn’t even have to search to find the box. It was fairly obvious that Sherlock was now in the habit of opening it and taking the things out. And being Sherlock, he was awful about putting things away (the only thing he was really careful about was his violin, John realized, and his socks…). So the bed clothes were mussed, the box was on the bed, and half of the items were strewn across the duvet. John peered in.   
  
The DVDs and the bath toys were still in the box. A few of the storybooks and all of the colouring books. The blue flannel pyjamas. The little bowl and plate.  
  
The items on the bed included a few dummies. The baby lotion. The pink blanket. The soft flannel and the baby wash. Several colourful books. A stuffed doggie with a rather jowly face and a stuffed kitty with green eyes. There was a sort of drawing pad that apparently worked with a magnetic “pen.” A Fuzzy-Felt set—farm animals.  
  
It made a certain amount of sense, John realized. Sherlock had been—was he ready to use the word? He had to be at some point— _playing_ up there, all on his own. He hadn’t been able to do anything with the DVDs or bath toys, but he been doing something with the manipulative toys and quite likely reading the books. John recalled that he had seemed to like the feel of the softer, smoother items, like the blanket, and the smell of the lotion. He might even have been napping up there when John was out, he realized.  
  
The wipes and the nappies were on the floor, halfway under the bed. Interesting.  
  
Well, it was certainly enough to be going on. John didn’t put anything away.


	29. Chapter 29

Sherlock finally wandered into the kitchen. He was dressed and looked rather eager about something. “John, do we have any honey?” he asked. “And coffee?” he added hopefully.  
  
“You don’t want the honey for your coffee, do you.”  
  
“Don’t be ridiculous. Do we?”  
  
John sighed and pointed at a cabinet. “And you can make your own coffee. I’m going in for a few hours; covering for Dr Wilson. He’s having a root canal.”  
  
“That sounds positively scintillating. I’m sure you’ll cure the common cold before he’s done.”  
  
“Twat.”  
  
 _So,_ John wondered as he found his shoes. _Was last night an aberration? Had it meant anything? Did Sherlock even remember it?_  
  
“If there is the slightest hint of stickiness anywhere in this flat when I get home, no experiments for a week,” he called out as he headed down the stairs.  
  
He wasn’t sure if he had imagined the grumbled assent.  
  
*  
  
John found himself distracted. Several times he had to almost shake himself to attend to the task at hand. He was much more interested in making a shopping list for his trip home.  
  
*  
  
“Sherlock? You home?” _Please don’t be home—please please don’t be home. I’m not ready for this. Am I ready for this? Are you ready for this? Do you actually want this? Will I have to move out?_ John tried to still his buzzing thoughts. He had done his shopping, and it had made him feel ridiculously guilty and conspicuous. _Why?_ he wondered. _It’s not like I purchased anything illegal. Or even unusual. It’s not like that time Sherlock insisted that I purchase something from that sex-toy shop to distract the clerk while he… oh, let’s not go there._  
  
Especially because his purchase had proven to be quite a hit…  
  
Stop that, he told himself.  
  
“Sherlock?” he called out again, a bit more loudly.  
  
“Yes, John?” the dark-haired man replied calmly, from directly behind him. John nearly jumped out of his skin.  
  
“Christ!” he gasped, nearly dropping his bags.  
  
Sherlock frowned at him as he divested himself of his coat and scarf. He hung them up, then put his hand out for John’s jacket. His heart still pounding, he dropped his bags on the floor and removed it, handing it over to be neatly hung up next to the Belstaff.  
  
“You all right?” he asked.  
  
“Fine. You just startled me.”  
  
Sherlock nodded his understanding and went over to the desk, where he grabbed his laptop and was suddenly typing at lightning speed. He paused and looked at John again, a slight look of concern on his face. “Are you sure you’re all right? You look a bit… I’m not sure.”  
  
“Yeah. Fine. Long day is all.”  
  
Sherlock nodded again and got back to typing. John retrieved the bags, then hesitated. What the hell was he going to do with them? He looked over. Sherlock was now frowning and typing even more rapidly, and rather emphatically. No wonder he wore keyboards out, the doctor mused.  
  
Reassured, though, that Sherlock was focused on whatever it was he was doing, John brought them into the bedroom. He shut the door quietly behind him, sat on the bed, and unloaded his purchases. Removed packaging and tags. Wondered if he should have his sanity tested. Put everything back in the bags and shoved them to the back of his wardrobe.


	30. Chapter 30

Not another word was spoken about the subject by either of them for another week. Sherlock had a rather engaging private case involving a kidnapped bicycle rider, a defrocked clergyman, and a fist fight that resulted in a rather large discoloured lump on Sherlock’s forehead. John had been rather furious at his partner for most of the week; he had been sent to gather information and then roundly insulted for pretty much everything he did. Of course he had tended to the idiot’s injuries—he was, after all, still _his_ idiot—but he hadn’t been very happy about it until the whole mess ended up with them rescuing said kidnapped bicycle rider and preventing a forced marriage. All things considered, a week well spent.  
  
John was now attempting to write it up for his blog, but he kept looking up at Sherlock in exasperation. As usual, the detective had eschewed food and sleep while working. John had already solved the former problem with a wildly unhealthy feast of fish and chips (fingers foods, he dimly realized, at least the way he eats) and now he was hoping that the latter issue would resolve itself.  
  
Nope. Not a chance.  
  
Sherlock was wired. This happened sometimes. Instead of the post-case/post-feast crash (and he slept so soundly during those crashes that John had once crumpled up pieces of newspaper and scattered them all around the prone body just to see what would happen) he was wandering around the flat, quite literally poking at things. Including John’s laptop. While John was trying to type.  
  
He smacked his hand. “Stop that!” he fussed.  
  
“John…” Sherlock grumbled, wandering over to the window.  
  
“Yes?” John replied as patiently as he could.  
  
Sherlock sighed, picking at the fussy curtain.  
  
“Can’t settle down?” the doctor suggested, somewhat facetiously. Sherlock shook his head and sighed more loudly. John rolled his eyes and took his hands off the keyboard. “Can I help?”  
  
“I don’t know. Can you?” He sounded peevish, but his face betrayed him. He really was wound up, John realized. Okay, maybe this would be a good opportunity. Sure. Why not?  
  
“How about a nice hot bath?”  
  
Sherlock shook his head. “I don’t know.”  
  
“Come on. Take a nice bath. I’m sure you’ll be able to sleep after that.”  
  
The lanky man shrugged. “It can’t hurt.”  
  
Okay. Step one accomplished. He headed toward the bathroom.  
  
“Come on. It’s ready,” he called. Sherlock appeared. The circles under his eyes were readily apparent. “Clothes off, silly boy.” He reached out to unbutton the not-so-crisp shirt.  
  
“I can do that,” Sherlock said sharply, slapping at his hands.  
  
“Let me help. I want to help.”  
  
Grumbling, he put his hands down by his sides and let his partner gently unbutton and remove his shirt, and then his trousers, socks, and pants. “In you go,” the doctor commanded. He stepped into the water (and how did his blogger get the temperature exactly right?) and sat down. He stretched out. He had to admit, it felt marvellous.  
  
“Let me see your forehead,” the doctor requested, moving the curls gently over. “It’ll be fine. Healing nicely,” he reported. He stroked his hand down one cheek, then bent forward and kissed the wound. Sherlock smiled up at him. He was starting to unwind already. Excellent. “I’m just going to get something. I’ll be right back.” Sherlock nodded sleepily.  
  
John was back in moments. “Close your eyes, my love. I’ve got you.” The arresting eyes drooped shut. John dropped a folded towel on the floor and knelt on it, pushing up his sleeves. He popped the top of the bottle he had retrieved from the upstairs bedroom and dispensed some of what it held onto the extra-soft flannel that had been with it. Dipped his hand into the warm water and gently began to run it along one of the pale arms.  
  
“Mmm,” the deep voice rumbled. “Smells nice. Feels nice.”  
  
“I’m glad you like it. It’s something new,” John replied carefully, starting to work on the other arm.  
  
“Smells familiar.”  
  
“Does it?” He began to run the cloth over the thin chest, but suddenly a long-fingered hand shot out of the water and grabbed his wrist. Shit. The eyes shot open and glared down at the flannel. “What?” he asked disingenuously.  
  
“What is this? And,” and he sat up and peered over the edge of the tub, “what is _that?_  
  
“It’s baby wash,” he replied calmly. “Lie back.”  
  
“Where did you get that? Why are you using it on me?” There was anger and something else in the younger man’s voice.   
  
“I got it from upstairs and I thought it would help you relax,” the doctor explained evenly; how he managed it when his heart was going to beat right out of his chest, he wasn’t sure.  
  
“I don’t want—“  
  
“Yes, you do.” He calmly poured more of the wash onto the flannel. “Lie back. Close your eyes.” He received a glare instead.  
  
“Why are you doing this?” he demanded.  
  
“Are you telling me that you don’t remember a week ago, what we talked about? Or that I helped you to get ready for bed? Tucked you in?”  
  
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” was the cold reply.  
  
“Bollocks. Sherlock, you know you liked it when I…” he paused. This was just as hard as he thought it would be.  
  
“When you what?”  
  
“When I acted like your daddy.”  
  
“No. No. I didn’t say that I did. You’re mad. Let me up. I want to get out. Leave me _alone!”_ John held his boy’s shoulders firmly, keeping him from standing up. He was panicking now. “Stop it!” he said sharply. “Just listen to me. We both know that that _really happened_ —the day at the museum, and the discussion afterward, and me _very willingly_ helping you get ready for bed. Yeah. I helped you brush your teeth and use the loo and I changed you and I tucked you in with a nice soft toy.”  
  
Silence. The dark curls obscured the angry eyes as he bent his head forward.  
  
“I also know that you’ve been sleeping with that bunny quite a bit, and that you’ve been playing with those things that belonged to Jordan Atkinson when I’ve been out. And do you know what? It’s fine. It’s all fine.”  
  
A small sound; almost a whimper.  
  
“It’s all right. It’s really all right. I understand. I do. I’ve been doing some research—” a moan—“and I really do understand. You told me, didn’t you? You even gave me the terminology. Infantilism. Non-sexual age play.”  
  
Sherlock wrapped his arms over his head.  
  
“Hey. Come on. There is absolutely no need to be embarrassed. As soon as I started reading about it, I could see what appealed to you. You go all out, all the time. You treat your body horribly and you exhaust yourself. You’re always on edge; always snapping at everyone. Come on. You see some awful things. You _do_ some awful things. And I think that sometimes it’s too much, even for you. You said to me that when I held your hand, you felt safe. You liked that I took charge; made the decisions. Didn’t you?”  
  
A small nod. Oh, thank God. He was on the right track.  
  
“And do you know what? I liked doing it. I liked taking your hand. I liked that you trusted me enough to get you across the street and out of trouble. It felt _right._ ”  
  
“What are you saying?” the low voice muttered. He sounded exhausted.  
  
“Well, you need a lot of taking care of. You know that. And I like taking care of you.”  
  
“So? You do that already.”  
  
“I think that there are other ways that I could take care of you, and that you could relax and rest a bit. I think that those ways appeal to you more than you realize. Be honest. Have you been playing upstairs?” He slipped a hand under Sherlock’s chin and raised his head so he could look into his eyes. He looked frightened.  
  
“I wasn’t _playing._ I was just _looking.”_  
  
“Okay. That’s fine. Did you want to play?”  
  
Sherlock’s eyes filled with tears and he looked away. And then, very slowly, he nodded.  
  
“Good boy.” John sighed. “You _are_ my good boy. Isn’t that what you’d like? To be my boy sometimes? Leave all the hard stuff up to me?”  
  
“Yes,” came a small voice.  
  
“And do you want me to bathe you and dress you and cuddle you? Read you stories?”  
  
“Uh huh.”  
  
“And how about some toys? I bet you’d like some of those building blocks. You could get quite creative with those.”  
  
“Can I…”  
  
“Can you what, love?”  
  
Sherlock finally looked at the older man again. One tear had slipped down his razor-sharp cheek, and his expression—his voice—his entire demeanour—had changed. He began to rock slightly, curling his legs up to his chest and wrapping his arms around them. And then he was finally able to say it.  
  
“Can I have crayons?”  
  
“Oh, Sherlock! My sweet boy. Of _course_ you can have crayons!”


	31. Chapter 31

“Hey, Greg,” John called out, waving from across the pub. Greg saw him and came over to the booth, ditching his coat before sliding in.  
  
“Hey, John. Glad you could meet me.” The silver-haired man smiled. There was something about John Watson that was just—settling. Was it all right to say that? The opposite of unsettling. Sure.  
  
“What’s up? You wanted to talk? Is Sherlock in trouble?” He figured it hadn’t been anything horribly illegal, whatever it was, or he’d likely already known about it.  
  
“Nothing,” Greg surprised him by saying. “It’s not a thing he did. Yet.”  
  
John smiled at this as a server came over with two beers. John thanked her and indicated the glass in front of Greg. “Drink up,” he suggested, taking a good long pull of his own.  
  
“Wasn’t this a bad idea the last time we did this?” Lestrade wondered aloud. And then took a good-sized gulp. “Oh, that’s lovely,” he moaned.  
  
“The key is water,” John intoned solemnly. Then he giggled. “I felt like I had licked the floor of a holding cell next day.”  
  
“I’m sure I wasn’t any better, and I had to go to work. But that’s not what we’re here to talk about.” His brown eyes fixed on the doctor’s face expectantly, then looked away. He began to examine the scarred table intently.  
  
“Come on. What’s he done now?”  
  
“It’s what he hasn’t done. He hasn’t texted me; called me. No rude emails. No intrusions at the office or crime scenes. For weeks now. It’s just not natural!”  
  
“Oh! Is that all? No, he’s just been busy with some private cases. Yeah.” John licked his lips.  
  
“John Watson, you are a _terrible_ liar. And I’m a detective inspector; I’m an expert on liars.”   
  
“Yeah. All right. There’s just been some stuff.” John shrugged unconvincingly.  
  
Greg leaned forward. “Christ. Is he using again?”  
  
“Uh. He was. He did. He does. You know he does. No, it’s not about that exactly. Not entirely.”  
  
“Then what’s up with him?”  
  
“It’s not that he’s not all right. I just think he’s sort of like a kettle and I never know when’s he’s going to boil over, you know?” Greg nodded. He knew exactly what the doctor meant. “We’re working on some… um… new coping techniques, I guess you could say.” John paused and found something absolutely fascinating to stare at in his beer.  
  
“Something new. Erm… can we just drop it and move on to—I don’t know—football?” Greg fidgeted with his own glass.  
  
“Football? Really, Greg?”  
  
Greg held up his hands in protest. “You know I have no problem _at all_ with your relationship—I mean, it’s about time and I won the pool—but I really don’t need the details.”  
  
John laughed. “Not like that! Well, not entirely,” he added wickedly.  
  
Greg put his hands over his ears. “Nope. Can’t hear you,” he chanted.  
  
“So you don’t want to hear about the plaster behind the headboard—”  
  
“NO! Really, seriously—no!”  
  
John relented. “No, it really isn’t like that,” he chuckled, and then sobered. “No. There was a case, a while back—with you. And it’s had some lingering effects, I guess you could say, and you know what he’s like about feelings.”  
  
“Which case? What’s gotten to him?”  
  
“It’s not important. Honestly. I’ve got him.”  
  
“Okay. It’s fine if you don’t want to share the details.”  
  
John waited. Greg waited. John hummed tunelessly. Greg drummed his fingers on the sticky table. John took a long, thoughtful drink.  
  
“Fuck, John! If you don’t tell me, I’ll… bring a few lads around.”  
  
John held up a warning finger. “Nope. No busts. The last one nearly got us chucked out.”  
  
“Yeah. Sorry about that. Did she charge you for the repair?”  
  
“The resident genius paid, yeah. Don’t worry. He said the toilet had it coming.” They both snorted.  
  
“Git,” Greg commented. “But, seriously, if whatever’s he’s going through has got him using again. Still. Whatever. You’re not going to tell me, are you?”  
  
“Nope. But please believe me when I say that I will take care of him,” John replied sincerely.  
  
“Okay. I believe you. Just let me know if I can help, yeah?”  
  
“I will. Another round?”  
  
“Yeah. I’ve got this one.”  
  
They called it a night after their second round, both congratulating themselves on their restraint that evening as they headed their separate ways.


	32. Chapter 32

“No!” Sherlock shouted.  
  
“For heaven’s sake, Sherlock, why not?”  
  
Sherlock crossed his arms firmly across his chest.  
  
John took a deep breath. “You’re being ridiculous. I’ve seen you naked hundreds of times. Hell, the Queen almost saw you naked. What’s your problem?”  
  
“It’s _different.”_  
  
“How is it different?” John began to realize that he was dealing with Little Sherlock.  
  
“It just is.”  
  
And then John understood—it wasn’t that it was different, really. It was that he _wanted_ it to be different. “Oh, I see. Is my boy too grown-up to be naked in front of Daddy?”  
  
Sherlock nodded emphatically.  
  
“But you need to take a bath. You can’t do that with your clothes on.”  
  
“Do it myself,” Sherlock huffed dramatically.  
  
“No, I don’t think so.” John shook his head slowly back and forth. “Little boys can’t take baths by themselves. It’s too dangerous.”  
  
“Take a shower. I can do it all by myself.”  
  
John suppressed a grin. He knew he was going to win this one. “Really? Because it’s a shame,” he tutted.  
  
“Why?” Sherlock looked suspiciously at him.  
  
“Well, because I was going to share something new with you, and it’s just for the bath, but if you want to take a shower all by yourself—“  
  
“What? What is it? Is it a present? Is it for me?”  
  
John gave up and chuckled. “Yes, it’s a present and yes, it’s for you. But it’s just for the bath, and little boys don’t take baths all by themselves.”  
  
Sherlock debated. “Is it bath crayons?” he finally asked in a small voice.  
  
“My brilliant boy. Yes, it is. Now, how about I go get them while you take off those clothes, all right?”  
  
“Yes, Daddy!”


	33. Chapter 33

“Here, Daddy!” Sherlock waved his completed work of art triumphantly. John looked over at it from where he was folding a load of laundry.  
  
“That is beautiful, my baby boy. I see that you’ve used a lot of different colours.”  
  
“It’s the fireworks we saw.”  
  
John nodded. “I see that. Those were fun, weren’t they?”  
  
Sherlock nodded in agreement. “Daddy, do you know how they make the different colours of fireworks?” Sherlock reached for a clean sheet of paper.  
  
“No, I don’t.” John shook out a t-shirt and folded it precisely.  
  
“They use different… umm… chemistry…. Chemicals.” He thoughtfully chose a crayon.  
  
“Do they?” John added neatly-folded pyjamas to the pile. They were green with dogs and bones on them.  
  
“Mmm.” Sherlock then proceeded to launch into a full-scale explanation of the various chemical compounds required to make fireworks, rapidly covering the paper with the colours he was describing. John grinned. It was interesting. When Sherlock was playing, he often used his left hand. Although he was fairly dexterous with it (he certainly was when playing the violin, after all), he was still right-hand-dominant enough that the results were always imprecise; messy. Childlike. Adorable.  
  
In fact, right that minute, despite the names of the various chemical compounds spilling from him, he accidentally coloured right off the edge of the paper and onto the coffee table with a purple crayon. “Oops,” he commented, glancing up guiltily at his Daddy.  
  
“Oops,” Daddy agreed. “Don’t worry, love. That table’s seen much worse.” Sherlock frowned, puzzled by this. “How about a fresh piece of paper?” With that, he was fine again. He looked thoughtfully at the purple crayon and began to draw.  
  
Several minutes later, he showed Daddy his new masterpiece.  
  
There were stick figures. Two were standing. One was taller than the other. The taller one had black squiggles on its head and the other featured an interesting mix of yellow and grey short, straight lines. The smaller figure was wearing blue trousers, brown shoes, and a creamy white jumper. The larger was dressed in a purple shirt, black trousers and shoes, and over that a long, dark blue coat and scarf.  
  
The third stick figure was drawn horizontally; apparently lying down. That one featured long, yellow hair and a coat coloured a vivid pink.  
  
John snorted. Oh, his boy was so funny sometimes. “That’s excellent, Sherlock,” he praised.  
  
Lestrade walked in.  
  
All three of them froze.  
  
The Detective Inspector’s eyes darted all around the sitting room. John followed them, realizing what the silver-haired man was observing.  
  
First was a glance down. Sherlock hadn’t put away all his blocks before he had taken out his crayons. That was one of their rules. The blocks featured images from the periodic table of elements.  
  
Damn.  
  
Greg’s eyes now swept over to John, who was holding a pale yellow baby blanket, arrested in the middle of folding it.  
  
Crap.  
  
Now to the coffee table, on which there were several sheets of paper covered in crayon and a bottle that featured Winnie-the-Pooh characters.  
  
Shit.  
  
And then, of course—to Sherlock.  
  
Sherlock was seated on the floor, his back to the sofa and his long legs under the coffee table. He was wearing nothing but a t-shirt that featured the colourful cartoon images of Danger Mouse and Penfold and pants. Extra-thick pants.  
  
Fuck.  
  
“Oh!” Sherlock exclaimed. “I forgot!” He grabbed a crayon and began to add something to his drawing.  
  
John finished folding the blanket and added it to the pile. “Umm… Greg. Have a seat.” He indicated the easy chair.  
  
“Yeah. I think I will.” Greg sat heavily, not taking his eyes off Sherlock, who was concentrating on his drawing, the tip of his tongue sticking out the slightest bit.  
  
“Uh…” John started. He licked his lips; his mouth suddenly felt terribly, horribly dry.  
  
“John,” Greg started, sounding surprisingly calm. “Is this the new ‘coping technique’ thing you were talking about?” John nodded. “I see.”  
  
“It’s… a long story?”  
  
“I imagine it is. Not sure I really need to hear it, do I?”  
  
John shrugged helplessly.  
  
“Daddy!” John looked sharply over at his boy, who waved the drawing at him energetically. “Look! I fixed it.” He took a few steps over and accepted the paper. Sherlock had added another figure. This one wore a long tan coat and had grey hair. “I forgot to put in Uncle Greg but I fixed it. See?”  
  
“Yeah. Yeah, Sherlock. That’s great. Excellent.” He handed the paper to the seated man.  
  
“Daddy, I want juice.”  
  
“If you’re thirsty, finish your water.” John observed Greg as he examined the crayon figures.  
  
“I did. Want juice now. Maybe can Uncle Greg get it?” Sherlock suggested shyly.  
  
“Sure thing.” Greg Lestrade rose and picked up the bottle. He then solemnly handed the drawing back to Sherlock. “Good job, mate. But where’s Anderson?”  
  
Sherlock rolled his eyes melodramatically. “He’s too stupid to waste time drawing.”  
  
He wasn’t sure why Daddy and Uncle Greg were laughing.


	34. Chapter 34

“What’s that?” Sherlock eyed the package intensely.  
  
“Oh, just something I ordered,” John replied casually.  
  
Sherlock peered at the label. “It’s from Hamleys. You ordered something from Hamleys?”  
  
“Yeah, I did. Good deduction, there,” John answered good-naturedly, slurping down the last of his coffee.  
  
“What is it?”  
  
“Sherlock! Don’t be so nosey.”  
  
“But that’s just how I am,” the detective protested. “Detective. Remember?”  
  
“Well, you better behave yourself if you want to know what’s in it.” John put his mug in the sink and wiped his hands on the tea towel.  
  
“Why?”  
  
“Because it’s for you.” John wandered into the sitting room with a grin on his face.  
  
“You got something from Hamleys… for me?”  
  
“Well, not exactly.” John waited, wondering if it would work. “Have you been a good boy?”  
  
Sherlock’s eyes opened wide. He got it. “It’s for… Little me?” he asked quietly.  
  
“Yup. Do you want to open it, sweet boy?”  
  
John just watched. The change always amazed him. He had thought that he had seen Sherlock in pretty much every physical state possible—at his peak, leaping across gaps between buildings; scaling fences as easily as other people walked up stairs. Frustrated—pacing restlessly, the tension visible in every muscle. Poised when he played his violin. Precise when he was working on his experiments. And the opposite—limp with the lassitude and sometimes depression that followed a case. Clumsy and high. Awkward and twisted when he was coming down. But John’s favourite was the relaxed and loose limbed and lovely man who would lie next to him in bed, his eyes shut and a sweet smile on his face, running his long fingers up and down his own belly and chest in a love-induced haze.  
  
This was new.  
  
 _I get into a completely different mind set,_ Sherlock had explained after the unexpected incident that resulted in “Uncle Greg.”   
  
Apparently that mind set affected everything about him--the way he talked, the way he moved. The way he approached things; reacted to things. To people. John could actually _see_ him swirl down, away from his adult self. He seemed to get smaller. His shoulders slumped. His head tilted. His fingers would grow clumsy. He would often drop to the floor, preferring to sprawl out and look up at things instead of looming over them in his usual fashion.  
  
Which is what he did now. The box was on the coffee table. As soon as John had addressed him as “sweet boy,” his body responded. He sank down next to it, cross-legged.  
  
And now it was step two, as John thought of it. It was Sherlock’s voice. Sherlock’s baritone was amazing. It boomed and rolled at crime scenes as he shouted at incompetent constables. It could ooze charm until it was like being surrounded by velvet. And when they were together, it was, as had once been explained to John by someone who apparently believed John when he said they weren’t boyfriends, one of the sexiest things on the planet. John was aware of this. Quite aware. In fact he wouldn’t ever admit it to anyone, but just the sound of Sherlock’s voice saying certain words could get him hard.  
  
But when he was little—it was so very different. He somehow made it soft. Some of it was the way he actually pronounced things—childishly; occasionally a lisp slipped in. It was his choice of words—gone were the thousand synonyms; the distain for the shortest way to say anything. Gone was the so-rapid-as-to-be-almost-impossible-to-follow deduction pattern. Instead he reverted to the basics: yellow instead of chartreuse or amber or citron. Suddenly their world was populated with doggies instead of hounds, and a “bad man” haunted them instead of “the Napoleon of crime.” And he would hesitate. Repeat himself. Use the wrong words.  
  
And of course there was his name for John.  
  
“Yes, Daddy!” he shouted. “Very good!”  
  
And then John got to see step three. The third step was John’s favourite. Step three was Sherlock’s face.  
  
Instead of a scowl; a glare; a sneer--instead of raised eyebrows--instead of rolling eyes. No frown of concentration or frustration. No smirk of superiority. No fury.  
  
Instead, Sherlock’s face became _open._ He would beam in genuine delight that crinkled his eyes. His frown held an element of confusion, as if the feeling was alien to him. And when he cried…  
  
But right now John was treated to his favourite: The Smile. It was an expression of eagerness and openness and expectation and joy. And that expression was for Sherlock’s Daddy and him alone.  
  
John beamed back, elated. “There’s my sweet boy!” he exclaimed. “Would you like Daddy to help with the package?”  
  
“Do it myself,” Sherlock proclaimed solemnly. “Get scissors, Daddy!”  
  
“What’s our rule about scissors?” John reminded him, retrieving them from the desk.  
  
“Can’t… um… I forget.”  
  
“You can’t use the big-boy scissors unless Daddy is…” John prompted.  
  
“Right beside me!” Sherlock finished in triumph.  
  
“Good job.” John sat on the sofa and carefully handed his boy the scissors, handles first, and found himself hovering protectively while the long, white fingers began to work on the packing tape. He helped with the packaging, laughing as Sherlock shook his head, trying to dislodge a bit of cardboard from his curls.  
  
And then he heard a gasp of sheer delight.  
  
“Daddy! It’s a BEE!”  
  
It certainly was. It was a fairly large soft toy bee that, according to the website, unfastened and became a pillow. It was pale yellow with brownish-black stripes on its plush body, pale yellow velour “wings,” and a smiling face with a red nose. John had chosen it partially because of its size; Sherlock could wrap his long arms around it and still feel small.  
  
Which was exactly what he was doing.  
  
“Do you like it, my sweet thing?”  
  
“Oh, yes. Thank you! Thank you, Daddy! I love it!”  
  
That was another lovely thing about Little Sherlock. He was so much more effusive; so much more grateful. So much more willing to say words like “thank you” and “love.”  
  
“Now, Sherlock—let me snip off the tags—I got you your very own bee for a reason. Can you think what it might be?”  
  
Sherlock frowned—there was the confusion—scrunched up his nose and shook his head.  
  
“Well, I know you like the bunny—” Sherlock’s frown intensified; he sensed what was coming. “But do you remember that the bunny actually belonged to someone else?” he prodded gently. Sherlock nodded very slowly, his face tight. “It belonged to a little girl, didn’t it?”  
  
“Yes,” he muttered reluctantly.  
  
“Do you remember her name?”  
  
“Jordan?”  
  
“Yeah. Good job. Her name was Jordan. Do you remember what happened to Jordan?”  
  
“She… bad people hurt her. Hurt her arm. She’s… the doctors couldn’t fix it. They tried to. And we helped Uncle Greg find the bad people and they got into a lot of trouble.”  
  
“Anything else?”  
  
“The little girl… um… she was… sad. She was sad a lot. The bad people hurt her Daddy, too, and took him away from her.”  
  
“That’s exactly right. Good job. Now, did you know that Jordan had a brother?” Sherlock nodded. He did know that. “Well, her brother lives all the way in New York, but he got in touch with me after we helped Uncle Greg lock those bad people up.” Sherlock waited, wondering why Daddy was talking about something that for some reason made him feel all funny and shivery in his tummy.  
  
“Jordan’s brother—his name is Michael—was very grateful—I mean he was very glad that we helped Uncle Greg find the bad people.”  
  
“Okay.” Sherlock clutched his new bee tightly.  
  
“Well, I was thinking that maybe Michael would like to have some of Jordan’s things. Not all the things,” he hastened to add—he obviously had no intention of shipping baby bottles and dummies to New York—“but some of them.”  
  
“What things?”  
  
“Well, maybe some of the storybooks? The Fuzzy-Felt?”  
  
“And… the bunny?” Sherlock supplied sadly.  
  
“Yes, I think he’d like the bunny, my love.”  
  
Sherlock considered this. John gave him as much time as he needed to process it. The downside of Sherlock’s Little personality was that he was much more sensitive; easily upset. John blew out an anxious breath, hoping his approach to the situation was going to work.  
  
Finally Sherlock sighed and kissed his new bee. “Daddy?”  
  
“Yes, sweet boy?”  
  
“If something happened to me—if bad people hurt me—would you give Mycroft my bee?”  
  
“If that’s what you would like, of course I would. But nothing is going to happen to you.”  
  
“No? What about bad people? There are lots of bad people.”  
  
John couldn’t argue with that. He had once remarked to Greg that they couldn’t tell if Sherlock was acting paranoid because people really _were_ out to get him. But that wasn’t exactly what he wanted to say now. “Sherlock,” he said instead, firmly, “I was a captain in the army and I’m a doctor and I am here to protect you from all the bad people. I’m here to keep you safe.”  
  
“And my bee.” Sherlock slid his thumb into his mouth.  
  
“And your bee.”


	35. Chapter 35

“Sherlock, it’s all right. He’s going to be all right.”  
  
“I should have realized—“  
  
“Even you could not anticipate a rusty fire escape giving way. And you weren’t even there.”  
  
“That’s it. _I_ wasn’t there. I sent _him_ there.”  
  
“Sherlock, there were two suspects who headed in opposite directions. Even you can’t be in two places at once.”  
  
“But…”  
  
“Sherlock, what’s gotten into you? Yes, Greg’s got a really nasty wound on his leg, but they’ve cleaned it out and stitched it up and pumped him full of all sorts of lovely meds. He’ll spend a day or two in hospital and a few more at home, and then he’ll be back to his usual grumpy self.” The detective didn’t reply, instead moving to the window and staring out moodily. “What’s bothering you so much?” John demanded.  
  
No reply.  
  
“Sherlock, you’ve never blamed yourself for anything that happened at a crime scene even when you actually _were_ the cause… that was not meant to sound like that…”  
  
“He wouldn’t have been there if it hadn’t been for me. I’m the one who decided to take the warehouse.”  
  
“So, if _he_ was in the warehouse, _you’d_ be the one on morphine with twenty stitches in your leg. Or he could have been there on his own. You were the one who said I should go with him, right? And I came in sort of handy—doctor, remember?”  
  
Sherlock flinched.  
  
John stared, and then his mouth fell open in realization. “Sherlock, it’s not just about Greg, is it? Are you upset because you think that something might have happened to _me_?”  
  
“I’m the one who sent you _both_ there,” he responded dismally. “What if you had gone up first?”  
  
“Well, I didn’t.” He walked over and patted Sherlock on the shoulder. “Hey. I’m here. I’m fine. Greg will be fine. And you did solve the case, you know. Those creeps will never set fire to anything ever again.”  
  
“I just keep thinking about that fire escape. The whole thing could have collapsed.”  
  
“But it didn’t. It’s past now. Come on.” John reached comforting arms around Sherlock’s shoulders as his head dropped forward, thumping quietly on the window pane. “Calm down.”  
  
“John, what’s _wrong_ with me?” Sherlock suddenly burst out. “This… sentiment… it’s crippling. How can you stand _feeling_ all the time?”  
  
“It’s a real handicap, I’ll grant you that,” John mused. “All these horrid squishy things inside us mere mortals.” And then he stopped suddenly and tightened his grip around his mate’s shoulders. “You’re shaking,” he murmured, the teasing gone from his voice. “Do you feel all right? Turn around.” He spun him. “Sherlock, you don’t look well. Come sit down.”  
  
He got Sherlock to sit stiffly on the sofa and he sat himself on the coffee table facing him. “Let me see your eyes,” he requested. He looked at them carefully, also noting that Sherlock’s colouring was off. He was even more pale than usual, and there were two spots of pink on the cheeks. He pushed a hand under the dark curls at the nape of the pale neck, resting his wrist on the skin there. He checked the thin man’s pulse, noting that every time he touched his hot, dry skin, Sherlock flinched. “You, mate, are ill.”  
  
“I am not,” the detective responded crankily. And then he shuddered.  
  
“Yes, you are. It hit suddenly, didn’t it? You were fine this morning.”  
  
The peculiar grey eyes wouldn’t meet his. “I started feeling a bit… off when I was in the warehouse.”  
  
“That was hours ago! Why didn’t you say something?”  
  
“You were busy making sure that Lestrade didn’t bleed to death. That seemed a little more important than this.”  
  
“And now you feel like absolute shit, don’t you?” The doctor stood up.  
  
Sherlock nodded miserably.  
  
“It’s probably flu. Come on. Bedtime for you.” And was alarmed when Sherlock’s eyes filled with tears. “Sherlock? What is it?” A shake of a dark head. “Come on. You’re ill. You need to be in bed.” A more violent shake. “Yes. Come on.” He paused. When he spoke again, his tone was different. “Would you like your special pyjamas?” he asked gently. “Let’s get you changed.”  
  
“No!” The voice was anguished.  
  
“No to what?”  
  
“No… none of _that._ ”  
  
“What?! Why not?”  
  
“It’s… you. You’re always taking care of people. At the surgery and Mrs Hudson and Lestrade and me. _Especially_ me.”  
  
John sat down next to Sherlock with a sigh. “Yeah, I do,” he agreed. “But that’s just what I do. Sherlock, I _like_ to take care of people. That’s why I became a doctor; why I joined the army. Why I’m fine when I’m chasing after you and making tourniquets for Detective Inspector’s legs and cooking dinner. “  
  
“I’m not talking just about that.”  
  
“I know. And that is why I am being one hundred percent honest when I tell you that I am the happiest I’ve ever been when I’m taking care of you. Of Little you.”  
  
Sherlock shuddered again.  
  
“Just believe me when I say that right now—right this very minute—I would rather be getting you changed into your nice cosy jimjams and taking your temperature and feeding you Paracetamol and tucking you into bed with your bee than doing _anything_ else. Now,” and he stood up again and reached out a hand. “Will you come with me and let me take care of you, my sweet boy?”


	36. Chapter 36

John glanced over at Sherlock’s side of the desk. It had been covered in clean, white paper, and Sherlock was carefully unpacking a flat box onto it. “Do you need help?” he asked.  
  
“No.”  
  
“All right. You know how to do it, right?”  
  
Sherlock blew out an exasperated sigh. “Yes! Lay out the parts. Make sure they’re all there. Follow the… the directions.”  
  
“Yeah. Good job. And you’ll ask me—“  
  
“For help if I need it. Yes! I _know_ that!”  
  
John tried not to smile at the tone. “And the last rule?”  
  
Sherlock rolled his eyes. “No sharp things and no glue unless you’re right next to me,” he huffed out.  
  
“All right, then. Go ahead.”  
  
The plastic snap-together model pirate ship was rated for age eight and up, but Sherlock was fairly advanced, small-motor-skill-wise at least, and John could only hope that he didn’t get too frustrated.


	37. Chapter 37

“Yes, you _will_ clean all that up. And then you will wash up and be seated at the table for supper in half an hour. Am I understood?” John folded his arms and indicated with his head the tangle of chemical paraphernalia that littered the entire kitchen.  
  
“No need to be so bossy,” his sulky flatmate responded.  
  
“Actually, yes, there is apparently a _great_ need for me to be so bossy. I’ve been asking you nicely for an hour to clean up and you’ve been ignoring me.”  
  
“If you want it cleaned up so badly, you do it.” Sherlock folded his arms defiantly as well, but he also began to gnaw nervously on his thumb.  
  
“What did you say?” John responded crisply.  
  
“If you want it cleaned up…” Sherlock started strong but petered out as the ex-army captain glared at him.  
  
“That does it. Not only will you get this cleaned up, but there will be no dessert for you tonight.”  
  
“That’s not fair!”  
  
“It’s perfectly fair, and if you continue to be naughty, you’ll be doing the washing up.”  
  
“But–”  
  
“And now we’re aiming for a shower instead of a bath as well.”  
  
Sherlock hesitated. He knew that John could do this all evening. After a shower would be early bedtime, with no story. After that would be extra chores the next day. And after that… oh, no. Not even Sherlock was going to push his daddy that far ever again. Once had been enough.  
  
Only a very, _very_ naughty Sherlock had to phone his brother and offer to attend Mycroft’s next official event, and to be on his best behaviour for it.  
  
Pouting so much it was comical, he began to put away his equipment.


	38. Chapter 38

It wasn’t the _what_ so much—it was still all about keeping Sherlock in line, making sure he ate and slept, and tending to his various injuries and inattentiveness—but the _how_ seemed to be making a difference.  
  
“What have you been up to while Daddy was working?” he could now ask, and Sherlock would eagerly tell him about his latest experiment instead of blatantly insulting John’s intelligence and declining to explain it because “it was too complicated for his tiny mind.”  
  
“It wasn’t very nice of you to smack Daddy when he just wanted to check your stitches,” would lead to a heartfelt and contrite apology.  
  
It also seemed to allow Sherlock to release the tight reign he had on expressing his feelings. Instead of remaining stoic while John carefully pulled bits of broken beaker out of his hand, he whimpered that it hurt, and Daddy please fix it, and sometimes he would even slide the tip of his thumb into his mouth and gnaw at it a bit, anxiety furrowing his forehead as he looked away while Daddy cleaned him up.  
  


> “I’m sorry you hurt yourself, my sweetheart. Do you understand now why Daddy said not to work on this unless he was with you?”
> 
> Sherlock nodded dolefully.
> 
> “It’s all right. Daddy will have this all fixed in no time, and then how about we watch something nice together?” 

John had also discovered why his partner sometimes had such a problem eating. Like his other senses, Sherlock’s senses of taste and smell were extremely keen, and he was sensitive not only to flavours but to textures. Scrambled eggs were fine, but fried eggs were deemed “gooey” and inedible. He didn’t like “food in his food,” as he put it—no mixing peas and carrots together; no “things” in his gravy.

> “What’s the matter, my sweet boy?” John asked as Sherlock pushed the toast away.
> 
> “Yucky.”
> 
> “What’s yucky, my love? You don’t like the way it tastes?”
> 
> Sherlock didn’t respond. John looked at the offending food item.
> 
> “Oh. I see. You wanted seedless raspberry jam, not lumpy old strawberry?” John took the offending toast for himself and made Sherlock’s fresh and seed-free. 

And finally—finally!—Sherlock was slowly beginning to reveal how some of their cases affected him.

> Sherlock sat quietly in his chair, staring into the fire.
> 
> “Do you want some tea?” John offered. “A snack? You didn’t have anything to eat all day.”
> 
> “Not hungry,” Sherlock responded angrily, waving his hand in a shooing motion.
> 
> John sat in his own chair and leaned forward. He put a hand on each of Sherlock’s bony knees. “Hey, look at me,” he requested.
> 
> “Don’t bother me, John. I’m thinking.”
> 
> “I said, look at me.” John was a bit more firm this time. He tapped his left hand on Sherlock’s leg twice.
> 
> “I said leave me alone!” Sherlock snapped, glaring down at the offending hands.
> 
> “And I said look at me, and when I ask my boy to do something, I expect him to do it.” He reached up and cupped his love’s chin, gently tipping his head up until their eyes met. “Now, I know this was a hard one, and it’s not your fault. You figured it out much faster than anyone else could have.”
> 
> “But I still didn’t do it. I still didn’t solve it before she…”
> 
> “It’s all right, Sherlock. We just saw something really awful, and it’s all right to be upset about it. Of course you wanted to solve it before she died. But you can’t do that every time.”
> 
> “But…” Sherlock’s voice broke.
> 
> “But what, my love?”
> 
> “It could have been anyone. Any older woman.” John waited patiently. He knew what the detective was struggling with. “It could have been… Mrs Turner. Or… or…” John stood up and wrapped himself around his sweet boy as he began to cry. “Daddy, it could have been Mrs Hudson that that bad man hurt!” 


	39. Chapter 39

“What did I tell you?” John crossed his arms over his chest and frowned.  
  
“It was bath time,” Sherlock responded slowly, sensing a trap.  
  
“After that.”  
  
“That you got me a new boat.”  
  
“After _that.”_  
  
Sherlock considered for a few seconds, shifting slightly. “That…”  
  
“Go on.”  
  
“That I could have my new boat if I promised not to… oh.”  
  
“Yes. Oh. What did I make you promise not to do?”  
  
Sherlock hung his head. “Not to get water on the floor.”  
  
“But what happened?”  
  
“There’s water on the floor.”  
  
“And how did that water get on the floor?”  
  
Sherlock’s lower lip pushed out. “I… I got it there?”  
  
John sighed. “Yes. Yes you did. You actually did, in point of fact, use your new boat as a scoop and poured the water onto the floor, did you not?”  
  
Sherlock’s lip quivered. “I just… I forgot.”  
  
“Oh, I see.” And John did see, and he relented before Sherlock tipped over the edge. “So what do you say to Daddy about all this?”  
  
“I’m sorry.” His voice was so small John could barely hear him.  
  
“All right, then. I suppose we all forget things sometimes, yeah?” He gazed affectionately as his dark-haired sweetheart shifted again. “How about I add some more hot water, and I clean this up, and you play with your new boat IN THE TUB for a bit?”  
  
“Daddy?”  
  
“Yes, my love?”  
  
“Can I have bubbles?”


	40. Chapter 40

Sherlock would still strop and fret when bored; jump perhaps a bit too eagerly into some cases (quite literally and John was amazed at how well the Belstaff cleaned up after its bath in the Serpentine). He still elicited amazing results and alarming messes with his experiments. He still deduced and insulted and commanded and fascinated. And he still, unfortunately, indulged in some of his extremely adult—and self-destructive—habits. But now when John was mopping up after him—literally _and_ figuratively—they had a way of discussing things that seemed to make it easier for both of them to say what they needed to say.  
  
“Sherlock, are you all right?” John called through the door. Sherlock had been closed in the bathroom when John got home from a weekend with Harry, and he was concerned. “Sherlock? Answer me. It’s getting a bit scary now.” Silence. “All right. That’s enough. I’m coming in.” John opened the bathroom door. “Oh, Christ, Sherlock! Why? Why do you do this to yourself?”  
  
No response from the white figure sitting on the cold tile floor, leaning up against the tub.  
  
Shouting at the idiot was not going to solve anything, John told himself. He took a few deep breaths, trying to get into a different mind set. Trying to see the pale man differently. Okay, now he was ready.  
  
“Sherlock?” he said, much more softly. “I see you’ve hurt yourself. Can I take a look?” He crouched down. “Come on, my love. Let Daddy see.” Slowly he was able to pull Sherlock’s hand away from his hip. He winced at the sight but focused on remaining calm. “Oh, wow. Yeah. It’s pretty bad this time. I’m afraid Daddy is going to have to get his doctor bag and stitch you up.”  
  
A whimper.  
  
“You’ll be all right.” He stood and gathered what he needed, then sat on the floor alongside the dark-haired man. “Okay. You’ll be okay. You’re my brave boy.”  
  
“No.” His voice was small.  
  
“No, what, my love?”  
  
“I’m not.”  
  
“You’re not what?” John, who had washed his hands and donned gloves, began to wipe away the blood.  
  
“I’m not your brave boy.” Sherlock shook his head and shut his eyes as they filled with tears.  
  
“No? Oh… you’ve frightened yourself this time, haven’t you?”  
  
His love nodded miserably.  
  
They sat in silence as John gently but professionally stitched up and bandaged the three self-inflicted slashes. He helped him stand and steered him gently into the bedroom and seated both of them on the bed. “Okay. I’m sorry, my sweet. I know that Big Sherlock doesn’t like talking about this, but we have to. Can you talk to Daddy for him?” No response. “Okay, I’m taking that for a yes. Can you tell Daddy why you hurt yourself?”  
  
Sherlock took a deep breath. “Angry,” he finally admitted.  
  
“Angry at whom? Angry at Daddy? At Big Brother?” Sherlock shook his head. “Who were you angry at, then?”  
  
“Me.”  
  
John was taken aback. He truly was. Even though he knew that this was the truth, he didn’t think that he could ever get Big _or_ Little Sherlock to admit it. “Why were you angry at yourself?” he asked softly.  
  
“’cause… ‘cause I did a bad thing.”  
  
“You did a bad thing? What bad thing did you do?” Once again, John suspected he already knew the answer, but he needed his lover to say it.  
  
“I…” a sob escaped him.   
  
John instantly wrapped his arms around him. “Shush, my sweetheart. You can tell Daddy what you did.”  
  
“You’ll be angry.”  
  
“I probably will be, yes.” No sense in not being honest.  
  
“You’ll shout.”  
  
“Hmm. How about this time I promise that I will not shout?” He whispered these words into Sherlock’s ear.  
  
“I’ll get punished.”  
  
“I think you’ve done quite enough of that yourself, don’t you? Now, come on, tell Daddy what you did, and then we can put this all behind us.”  
  
“I… took something.”  
  
“Do you mean you stole something?” _Come on, Sherlock. You can do this!_  
  
“I mean… I mean…” Sherlock began to rock, trying to self-comfort. John rocked with him, stroking his tangled curls off his forehead and cheeks. “I mean that I took something bad. Tablets.”  
  
“Do you know what they were?” Sherlock shook his head. “How did they make you feel?”  
  
He thought a second. “Variegated,” he reported.  
  
“Variegated? What do you mean?”  
  
“Everything was all mixed up.”  
  
“Ah. What else?”  
  
“It felt nice—sometimes. But it was hard to talk and hard to walk and other people were talking but I just wanted to sleep.”  
  
“But it wore off, right?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“And after it wore off, you were angry at yourself for taking it, and you hurt yourself because you were angry?”  
  
Sherlock, completely worn out, slumped against the doctor, who held him even tighter. They just sat for a few minutes. Eventually, John patted him on the back. “You did a good job, my boy. You were honest and told Daddy what you did. I’m very proud of you. Now, I think someone needs a nap. Why don’t you cuddle up with your bee and have a kip?”  
  
“Where are you going, Daddy?”  
  
“I’m going to talk to your Big Brother about some grown up things, and then I’m going to find the person who gave you those bad tablets, and I am going to shout at him, and then most likely Uncle Greg will bring me home and I’ll have to talk to a magistrate later.”  
  
Sherlock frowned as he lay down and accepted his bee. Daddies could be very confusing sometimes.


	41. Chapter 41

He didn’t just want to notice John’s eyes as they locked on his.  
  
He didn’t just want to feel John’s lips on his.  
  
He didn’t just want to feel John’s skin against his.  
  
He didn’t just want John to take him in hand.  
  
He didn’t just want to be taken and ravished by John. He wanted—  
  
He didn’t know what he wanted.  
  
It wasn’t that Sherlock Holmes didn’t understand emotions. He most certainly did. All of human behaviour was driven by emotions of one sort or another. Revenge and greed were the most common motivators of crime, after all, and he certainly was well versed in that. He understood anger and love and longing. He understood sorrow and grief.  
  
And it wasn’t that Sherlock Holmes was, as some thought, an emotionless psychopath—or even, as he claimed—a high-functioning sociopath. Not at all. Of _course_ he felt things. He experienced frustration and anxiety and excitement and joy on a regular basis.  
  
It was all that _experiencing_ that fucked him up.  
  
Because experiencing was hard. Experiencing was messy and uncontrollable. How was he expected to stay focused on determining the pattern of blood splatter across a dining room table if he was thinking about what the newly-widowed woman in the next room was feeling? How could he deduce that it was the attorney’s personal assistant who had killed the German teacher if he considered what the attorney’s kidnapped son was _feeling_?  
  
No. Feelings were horrid and messy and interfered with clear thinking.  
  
Sherlock Holmes chose to not get too involved in experiencing them. Not too eager to acknowledge them in himself.  
  
So he was a bit—rusty, one could say—about the whole thing. And now it was tripping him up.   
  
He lay sideways across their (their!) bed, on his back, his eyes shut, naked. His white skin contrasted with the dark duvet. He was vaguely aware that this was part of what made him “attractive.” He didn’t see it himself. He himself was much more attracted to golden skin. Like John’s. He ran his fingers through his dark curls. That was another thing he understood—those dark curls of his were attractive. That a lot of people—men and women—would like to run their fingers through those curls. He liked it when John, with his small, steady hands, did that.  
  
Sherlock opened his eyes. Oh, he was highly aware that his eyes were—unusual, to say the least—and their appearance was quite literally arresting. John had dark eyes and sometimes it seemed like Sherlock could see an entire universe in them.  
  
His fingertips brushed across his sharp cheekbone—another thing that for some reason people felt compelled to comment on—and then to his mouth. One finger gently circled his generous lips. He had once been told that his mouth should have been painted by Botticelli. That had amused him once he Googled the artist, but he still didn’t understand what all the fuss about something called a “Cupid’s bow” was. John had firm lips and when he licked them—which he did far too often—a shiver would run all the way up his spine to his head and down to his toes.  
  
He let his hand slide down now. For some reason his throat often got attention, which he found irritating. Thank goodness for The Scarf. His hand ran down his chest to his stomach. He knew that he was sometimes too thin. John had lovely, broad shoulders and the slightest hint of a soft belly and he absolutely loved to use it as a pillow so that he could feel John’s chest move with each breath.  
  
He detoured his hand past his hip and slid under his buttocks. Now, he understood why women with broad hips and generous buttocks were so desirable sexually (well, by at least some of the population). It had something to do with implied fertility and ease of childbirth. Something hard wired into the human brain. He had learned that watching a documentary, and had retained it because it was interesting and relevant when delving into the morass of human experience (as it pertained to crime, of course). He had no clue why his own buttocks so frequently elicited a positive response. He was fairly certain that he wasn’t going to be bearing any children.  
  
John had a sweet derriere with lighter skin than anywhere else on his body and he was especially fond of biting it.  
  
And now Sherlock let his hand get to its destination.  
  
This was physical—this bit. Not the boring eating and sleeping bits. This was like running after cabs and leaping from building to building. This was like holding the correct posture for playing his violin. This was throwing himself on his face and crawling around a crime scene with his magnifying lens. This was the bit about the physical that he liked.  
  
Not the _only_ thing, of course. Clearly. Sherlock wished that John was there instead of working at that boring surgery. Then the physical bit would be oh so very nice and delicious and hot and sweaty and hard and wet and salty and lovely lovely lovely  
  
He wanted  
  
he wanted  
  
he wanted  
  
Sherlock Holmes wanted to be enveloped  
  
he wanted to be consumed  
  
Sherlock wanted to somehow crawl inside John Watson and curl up inside that brilliant beating pounding strongest thing on the planet heart so he could somehow be part of it.  
  
And that’s what was fucked up about Sherlock Holmes feeling anything.


	42. Chapter 42

“The story’s done. Time to go to sleep.” He closed the book and put it down on the floor.  
  
“More!”  
  
“No. I said just one story tonight.”  
  
“Want more stories, Daddy.”  
  
“I know you do, but it’s late and you’re tired and I want you to shut your eyes and go to sleep.” John leaned forward and tucked Sherlock’s bee under the covers. “There. You’ve got your bee.” He kissed him on the forehead and stood up. Sherlock whimpered. “No. None of that. Daddy’s going to bed, too.” He turned on the nightlight and turned off the lamp.  
  
“Not tired!”  
  
“You’re so tired that you don’t know you’re tired,” John responded. “Shut your eyes and I’ll bet you’ll be asleep before I even brush my teeth.”  
  
“No! _Not tired!_ ” Sherlock threw his bee at Daddy. It bounced gently off his chest and landed on the floor.  
  
“That was not a nice thing to do.” He picked up the plush figure and patiently tucked it back under the covers. “Good night, Sherlock.” He turned to exit the room. This time it was Sherlock’s pillow that hit him.  
  
“Sherlock,” he said a bit more firmly, picking up the pillow. “It’s late, you’ve had a busy day, and you need to sleep.” He tried to put the pillow back on the bed.  
  
“No no no NO!” Sherlock flailed and smacked John’s hand away.  
  
John knew that tone; that pitch. Wound up, cranky, overly tired consulting detective was headed for a meltdown. Well, nothing he could do about it but let it run its course. He knew from experience that no amount of soothing, distracting, or even shouting was going to stop it. And he knew what he had to do.  
  
John turned and walked out of the bedroom, closing the door firmly behind him. From the solid thunk, this time he was fairly sure that it was the book that Sherlock had hurled in his direction.  
  
*  
  
Thirty minutes. Thirty. A record. John rubbed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose in exasperation. Sherlock had kept up full-out strop for thirty minutes. Thirty minutes of screaming, crying, and throwing things. He was sure that by now all the bedding was on the floor and every single storybook in the room was flipped open, pages torn. He wondered if he had yanked everything out of the drawers yet. He was thankful that over time he had gradually removed some of the heavier objects from the room; there wasn’t much else for Sherlock to throw.  
  
But he was showing signs of slowing down now. The thumps of objects hitting the door were less frequent. The screaming was hoarse. The sobbing was drawn out.   
  
And then, finally, miraculously, it stopped.  
  
Okay. It was time.  
  
John sighed as he warmed the milk in the microwave before pouring it in the bottle. He filled a training cup with cold water. Tucking the bottle under his arm, he went into the bathroom and wet a flannel, wringing it out. Squared his shoulders, undid the latch on the door, and stepped into the maelstrom.  
  
Yup. Just as he had expected. The duvet, blankets, and sheets were ripped haphazardly off the mattress. Most of the dresser drawers were open or pulled out completely, their contents strewn across the floor. Books everywhere. Some pages were ripped out entirely. The nightlight had somehow escaped damage.  
  
And in the midst of it all lay Sherlock, curled up on the mess of bedding on the floor. He was wearing nothing but his pants and was taking hitching, heavy breaths around his thumb.  
  
John’s heart melted.  
  
“Oh, sweetheart. Honey bee. Are you al l right? Did you hurt yourself?” Sherlock nodded miserably and extended his hand. Two of his fingers were scraped, probably from the dresser drawers. John immediately dropped to the floor next to him. “Do you want Daddy to fix it?” Sherlock nodded again. “All right. First…” John took the battered hand and gently kissed the sore fingers. “Now, let’s get you cleaned up.”  
  
Carefully, he wiped the tear-streaked face with the flannel. Sherlock’s eyes were swollen and red. Next, he found the tissues and had Sherlock blow his nose, and then he wiped his hands for him. “Can you hold your cup yourself and have some water while Daddy fixes the bed?” he asked. Sherlock nodded and sat up. “Good boy. Let’s get this all straightened out, hmm?”  
  
John efficiently untangled Sherlock from the bedding and made up the bed. It took him a minute to find all the pillows, but he had it done swiftly. He glanced at Sherlock, who was still on the floor, dripping water from his cup onto his leg.  
  
“All right,” he said firmly, taking it away. “Did you drink most of it?” A nod. “Good boy. Now I think that someone needs clean jimjams, yeah?” He had to search quite a bit through the clothing, and it would take him some time to get everything back in the drawers, but eventually he founds pyjamas for Sherlock and for himself. “Do you need clean pants?” Sherlock nodded sadly. “It’s all right. Stand up.” He slid the pants down—thankfully they were only damp—and clean ones back up, then the pyjamas.  
  
“All right. Into bed, and then Daddy is going to change, and then I’ve got something nice for you.” Sherlock crawled under the newly-tidied blankets and sat up against the headboard. He put his thumb back in his mouth and John let him.  
  
Two minutes and he was changed himself. Laundry and further tidying could wait for tomorrow. He glanced around, though, and on the far side of the bed, and finally under it. Ah. There it was. He slid under the covers with a sigh and handed Sherlock his bee.  
  
“Now, my sweet boy, come cuddle and have some nice warm milk, and then it’s time to go to sleep, yeah?” He gently slid the teat into his mouth and whispered “Drink it all up.”  
  
Sherlock was asleep before half the bottle was done.  
  
*  
  
A week later John reached for his baby boy’s hand, but the crowd held him back; kept them apart.  
  
 _“No, he’s my friend. He’s my friend. Please.”_  
  



End file.
